Glad someone spotted my outrageous submission towards the upcoming KCC County Development Plan.

Connceting the M7 and M4 (and the 2 rail lines) would greatly enhance future development of Kildare and the creation of jobs. As it stands, Kildare depends too much on Dublin.

First, let us consider Maynooth with regard to its geographical and its political location. I came across a submission towards the Kildare County Development Plan which envisaged a corridor of development in East Kildare, joining Maynooth and Naas, surrounding a new major road between these two centres. Now if one considers Maynooth and the nearby towns of Leixlip and Celbridge purely in the context of Co. Kildare, they appear as peripheral locations that ideally should be linked in with the rest of the county through the creation of a corridor of development. However Leixlip might alternatively be regarded as a natural centre whose catchment area includes both Maynooth and Celbridge, but also includes areas of Co. Dublin and Co. Meath such as Lucan, Clonsilla, Blanchardstown, Mullhuddart, Clonee and Dunboyne. Moreover one might consider the Intel plant in Leixlip and NUI Maynooth as two poles of a corridor for development of ‘smart’ high-tech industry. But how to plan for this on an inter-county basis?

Now the Maynooth-Leixlip-Celbridge triangle is separated from the other population centres in Co. Kildare by (what is presumably still) a belt of sparsely-populated agricultural land. I suggest that a natural centre for development in the South of the county is Newbridge: close to a junction of motorways; lying on the railway; and a reasonably central location with regard to Naas, Kildare and Athy, and within reach of Monasterevin. Given the proximity of the Curragh, etc., I would suggest that Kildare is less suitable. Of course the Curragh lies to the west of Newbridge, but maybe one could locate the development areas away from this more sensitive landscape.

It occurred to me, last night, looking at a small-scale map that the two railways through Co. Kildare come fairly close near Leixlip. This made me toy with the idea of joining the two with a link line. I would propose that such a line might leave the line from the south-west somewhere near Tipperstown, pass to the west of Celbridge (as close to the town as possible, given the location of housing estates), and join up with the Sligo line to the west of Leixlip Louisa Bridge. Many commuter trains from Kildare, after passing through Sallins, could be routed along this new line so as to pass through Leixlip, Castleknock and Drumcondra, to terminate either in Connolly, or if necessary in Docklands. Indeed such trains might be Dart services that would continue down to Bray or Greystones. Somewhere like Sallins, might indeed become the terminus both for Dart services coming from Howth or Malahide, via Docklands and the interconnector tunnel to Inchicore, and Dart services from the south, routed through Connolly and Drumcondra. The new link line would effectively link the population centres in the northeast of Co. Kildare to the rest of the county.

One might obtain a shorter route to the east of Celbridge. But this would inevitably pass through Castletown Demesne, which should surely be a protected environmentally-sensitive area. But of course, given the track record of Irish planners, if they were to consider a new link line at all, they would presumably insist that it had to pass within a hundred metres or so of Castletown House, and they would accordingly look forward with relish to a prolonged legal battle with the Irish Georgian Society, An Taisce, et al.

Just idle toying with outlandish proposals, of course. But it passes the time!