Over the coming years An Bord Pleanála (ABP) will have to process a large volume of planning applications for housing as well as the energy, transport and heating infrastructure necessary to facilitate Ireland reaching its climate targets. Unfortunately, in recent years ABP has been beset by scandals and delays raising questions about whether it is able to deal with the required throughput of applications.
Here I want to examine how long it is taking to decide on public transport infrastructure applications. To do this I looked up the application codes for all of the major public transport projects which have reached the ABP planning application stage. I then wrote some code to retrieve the information for each of the planning application pages from ABPs website for each relevant public transport project. The time taken for planning application consideration to date is shown in the plot below. A vertical gridline is added every 18 weeks representing the amount of time within which a decision is meant to be made.
I've written a script that should update this image daily so check back to see how long these planning applications take. I will endeavour to add new projects as they get submitted.
So far 12 of the public transport projects have had their applications decided on. The projects that have had their application decided are Cork Line Level Crossing Closures, Galway Cross-City Link, Dublin CBC 5: Blanchardstown To City Centre, Dart+ West, Dublin CBC 14/15: Belfield/Blackrock To City Centre, Dublin CBC 6: Lucan To City Centre, Dublin CBC 1: Clongriffin To City Centre, Dublin CBC 3/4: Ballymun/Finglas To City Centre, Dublin CBC 7: Liffey Valley To City Centre, Dublin CBC 2: Swords To City Centre, Dublin CBC 16: Ringsend To City Centre, Glounthaune to Midleton Twin Tracking. The decided applications have taken an average of 630 days. The planning application that has been in the system the longest without having a decision reached is the Metrolink which has taken 742 days so far.
Below is a table of the applications:
ID | Project | Decision | Time Taken |
310286 | Cork Line Level Crossing Closures | Make Railway Order w cons | 1139 |
314597 | Galway Cross-City Link | Approve with Conditions | 749 |
314724 | Metrolink | Requires Further Consideration | 742 |
313892 | Dublin CBC 5: Blanchardstown To City Centre | Approve with Conditions | 728 |
314232 | Dart+ West | Make Railway Order w cons | 720 |
313509 | Dublin CBC 14/15: Belfield/Blackrock To City Centre | Approve with Conditions | 691 |
314942 | Dublin CBC 6: Lucan To City Centre | Approve with Conditions | 678 |
313182 | Dublin CBC 1: Clongriffin To City Centre | Approve with Conditions | 647 |
316119 | Dart+ South West | Further consideration needed for this case. | 569 |
314610 | Dublin CBC 3/4: Ballymun/Finglas To City Centre | Approve with Conditions | 550 |
316272 | Dublin CBC 10/12: Templeogue/Rathfarnham To City Centre | Further consideration required | 546 |
316828 | Dublin CBC 8/9: Tallaght/Clondalkin To City Centre | Decision - Further consideration required | 532 |
314056 | Dublin CBC 7: Liffey Valley To City Centre | Approve with Conditions | 529 |
317660 | Dublin CBC 11: Kimmage To City Centre | Case is due to be decided by 31/01/2025 | 444 |
317742 | Dublin CBC 13: Bray To City Centre | Further consideration required | 434 |
317121 | Dublin CBC 2: Swords To City Centre | Approve with Conditions | 404 |
317679 | Dublin CBC 16: Ringsend To City Centre | Approve with Conditions | 370 |
315087 | Glounthaune to Midleton Twin Tracking | Make Railway Order w cons | 350 |
320164 | Dart+ Coastal North | Case is due to be decided by 03/02/2025 | 91 |
If you are interested in seeing how this was done the code for this project is available on my GitHub here