Council vote puts paid to €7bn theme park dream
Tuesday November 25 2003
THE BACKERS of a proposed €7bn theme park last night vowed to pull out of Ireland after their plans were thrown out by a council.
Fingal county councillors voted by 19-1 to reject the Vega City plan on the basis that it was "not acceptable" in its outline form.
They complained that the plan before them was "sloppy" and "vague". They said that they still didn't know who the backers were and that there was insufficient detail on how the park would affect north Dublin.
United Entertainment Partners, headed up by Cork property developer Owen O'Callaghan, said the project now was "not for Ireland" and they would seek an alternative site in Europe, probably in Britain.
Vega City was billed as the biggest entertainment project in the world and was planned for a 2,500-acre site in north Co Dublin.
Councillors were told that, if given planning permission, the park would incorporate 10,000 holiday apartments, 14 hotels and provide 65,000 jobs for the area. But UEP could not provide detailed plans of its proposal, which it claimed was backed up by international "household-name" entertainment firms.
Following advice from county manager William Soffe, councillors voted 19-1 to reject the plan.
The council last night sought a detailed proposal from the consortium as to the scale of the project and the identity of financial backers who have allegedly agreed to provide €3.5bn in funding to get the project off the ground.
Although UEP said one major backer would announce its support for the venture later this week, the consortium maintained it was not in a position to name the backers yesterday.
After the vote was called last night, a spokesman described the council's decision as "disappointing", saying the project was now lost to Ireland.
"It's not for Ireland. I'd be interested to see what the IDA will say about this," he said. "We try to attract international companies into Ireland and then this happens.
"We're talking about taking this somewhere else in Europe, probably to the UK. Not only do they (Fingal) not want to facilitate it - the county manager's position is so intractable we couldn't see working around that."
A 37-page report produced by council planners last week recommended rejection of the proposal, saying it would have "adverse environmental, social and economic impacts", and the UEP spokesman said UEP had received a "37-page closure" and had fought a "rearguard action since". People's main problem was the credibility of the project and they (council officials) refused an offer to go to the United States to see how theme parks work," he said.
Last night, chairman Owen O'Callaghan said that, due to the high costs involved in making a planning application, the consortium would pay officials to determine if it had merit and could go ahead.
At the special meeting held in council chambers last night, managing director of the consortium Louis Maguire told councillors that the massive development could not be scaled down in size.
The group said it was seeking "guidelines" from the council as to whether or not a planning application should be submitted, considering the size and scale of the proposed development.
An application would take at least 12 months to produce, would cost up to €8m, and the group was reluctant to commit that time and money unless the council were committed to taking the proposal "seriously".
"Vega City cannot be cut down, we will not bring it down, we will move elsewhere," Mr Maguire said.
- Paul Melia
