Better communication is needed from developers when they’re doing late night construction on building sites in our fast-growing area. Have you been affected by late night or early morning construction works next to you? I’m calling for more transparency for residents as to when out-of-hours works take place. This is particularly an issue around Sandyford, The Gallops and Kilternan where construction is going on right next to residents’ homes.
When developers get planning permission, there are conditions around what hours they are allowed to work. That’s fair. For example, this development has permission to work within certain hours.
I regularly submit planning enforcement complaints on behalf of residents near these sites. Many developers breach the conditions and action is taken by the council, but they must receive a complaint in order to open an investigation. See below, one complaint I made in November 2023:
However, developers can apply to the council for “derogations” from those hours, given them a day or a number of days where they can work late into the night or very early in the morning. Fair enough, within reason. There are realities of construction works that mean late night concrete pours and power-floating is needed. I, and most local residents, accept that.
The major problem with the existing system is that when the developer applies for this permission, the request doesn’t get published and nearby residents don’t get notified. The request gets published after the council has made a decision on it. Very often, the “derogation” days have already been done by the time the council publishes when they are. There is no obligation on the developer to properly inform nearby residents of the planned late night construction works. I don’t believe giving a flier to the management company a day or two beforehand is good enough to be honest.
This means that if you live beside a building site, you could be aware of the planning permission allowing construction between 8am and 7pm, but at any time, without any notice, the loud construction work, with strong lights, could take place all through the night right outside your bedroom window.
I have formally requested that DLR publish these developer requests on the otherwise very useful Planning Portal. Here is an example of one such request that ended up getting granted for the Rockbrook apartment development next to Beacon South Quarter.
If you have had an issue with developers working outside of permitted hours, you can make an enforcement complaint directly on [email protected] and you can cc me on [email protected] so I can follow up and support you.
