Local Tallaght Councillor, Charlie O’Connor, a long time campaigner for the proposed Heritage Centre for Tallaght, has welcomed the decision taken at the October meeting of South Dublin Council to proceed with what he sees as “asignificant project for Tallaght”. The Council dealt with the results of the outcome of the public consultation in respect of the matter. The Part 8 report presented to the Council sought planning consent to construct the Heritage Centre on a site located on existing SDCC lands, adjacent to the existing Civic Theatre. The site is currently part of an existing SDCC car park, used by council and Civic Theatre staff and customers.
The site is approximately 0.24 hectares and is bounded by an office development “Killakee House” to the east, Old Blessington Road to the south the existing SDCC car parking area to the north and the Civic Theatre to the east. In addition to containing parking the subject site contains some elements of soft landscaping, existing trees, and a variety of street furniture including lighting, bottle banks, bike lockers and boundary fencing. Some of these elements will be removed or modified to facilitate the proposed development as described on the Part 8 drawings.
The site is strategically located adjacent to the Square Tallaght Shopping Centre and car-park to the south and the Red Luas line. Tallaght (The Square) Luas stop is located 200m to the east of the subject site. The proposed Tallaght Heritage Centre development consists of an 870m2, two storey structure which will sit alongside other facilities forming a cultural quarter including the Civic Theatre, Rua Red, County Hall, and the County Library. The Heritage Centre is divided over two floors however the overall form will be commensurate with a building of 3-4 storeys in height giving the building sufficient civic scale to sit comfortably in its context. The proposed Heritage Centre is designed and organised to provide a series of flexible spaces which can be used in a variety of ways to accommodate a series of exhibition and gallery type spaces. The intention is to provide a mix of permanent exhibition elements and spaces to accommodate changing temporary exhibitions, events and activities.
According to Charlie O’Connor “The Heritage Centre will serve as a vital community resource, fostering engagement with the history and legacy of Tallaght and the wider County while also helping to make tangible the future vision for the town and wider county area. This will be done through interactive and interpretive exhibitions tailored to the space by EPIC Consultants. The internal spatial arrangement will help create continuity between exhibition spaces and their respective programmes, while also allowing for flexibility for how the space is used in the future.”
According to Charlie O’Connor, the proposed Heritage Centre for Tallaght is attracting strong support throughout the Region and he has had many calls and enquiries from Groups and individual. He added that there is a hope that the project will be delivered “in timely manner” and to this end, Charlie O’Connor has tabled a motion for the October meeting of the Tallaght Area Committee and called for assurances “that everything possible will be done to improve on the announced building schedule”.
The motion approved unanimously by members at the Council meeting stated that “As the proposed development is in accordance with the proper planning and sustainable development of the area, the Council approves the development of the proposed Tallaght Heritage Centre for Tallaght on SDCC land at Old Blessington Road, Tallaght, Dublin 24, situated to the east of the Civic Theatre”.
Charlie O’Connor, who has supported the project from the beginning, has finally stated that he will continue to monitor the whole development on behalf of the people of Tallaght.
