Amendment No. 141 is in the name of the Minister. Amendments Nos. 141a and 142 are alternatives. Amendment No. 144 is consequential on 141. I suggest that amendments Nos. 141, 141a, 142 and 144 be taken together.
SECTION 52.
I move amendment No. 141:
In page 45, lines 23 to 40, to delete subsections (3) and (4) and substitute the following:
"(3) (a) Where a motorway scheme or a protected road scheme approved by the Minister under section 49 includes provision for a service area—
(i) the Authority (in the case of a national road), or
(ii) a road authority, with the consent of the Authority (in the case of a national road) or the consent of the Minister (in the case of a regional road or local road),
may—
(I) provide or operate in a service area facilities or services for persons and vehicles using a motorway or a protected road,
(II) make an agreement with any person whereby that person (either by himself or jointly with the Authority or the road authority as the case may be) provides or operates in a service area facilities or services for persons and vehicles using a motorway or a protected road.
(b) A service area on a motorway or a protected road shall not be provided or operated save in accordance with paragraph (a).
The purpose of this section is to allow for service areas to be provided on motorways and protected roads. Explicit provision is required for this because, as a general rule, direct access from adjoining land to these categories of roads is prohibited or restricted. Planning permission cannot be given for developments along motorways or in specified cases along protected roads. Services on motorways and protected roads will have to be provided at properly planned service areas located at regular intervals, and in accordance with the provisions of the relevant motorway or protected road scheme only. On ordinary roads the provision of service facilities such as petrol, eating facilities and so on is regulated through the normal physical planning procedures. My amendments make it clear that service areas can only be provided on motorways and protected roads. It also allows the National Roads Authority themselves to provide and operate servive areas on motorways or protected roads classified as national roads. A road authority will also be able to provide or operate such facilities, with the consent of the National Roads Authority, in the case of motorways classified as national roads, or the Minister, in the case of motorways which are regional or local roads.
Section 52 (4) which allowed the National Roads Authority to prepare guidelines in relation to the provision or operation of service areas is being repealed as the National Roads Authority themselves henceforth will be able to provide or operate these facilities and will have to consent to local authorities providing service areas on motorways classified as national roads. The deletion of section 52 (5) (b) is a consequence of the above amendment which gives the National Roads Authority themselves powers to provide or operate service areas. The Minister will be free to consult with the National Roads Authority when making regulations but will not be obliged to do so.
Amendment No. 141a in the name of Deputy Yates is based on a misconception of the purpose of section 52. I want to repeat that its purpose is to permit service areas on motorways and protected roads. A service area can only be provided where there is a specific provision for it in a motorway or protected road scheme and where the scheme has been approved by the Minister following the holding of a public inquiry. Planning permission cannot be given for any development along a motorway nor any development which would contravene a protected roads scheme. This is explicitly stated in section 44. I emphasise that the only occasion on which a service area can be provided is when it is authorised by the relevant scheme. The service areas will be provided in accordance with strict criteria as to location, services to be provided and so on. My Department are already preparing a policy in this regard and if I consider it necessary I will make regulations to enforce this policy. Alternatively, the National Roads Authority will be able to set down guidelines with my explicit approval. The service areas will, of course, be regulated by the National Roads Authority and the local authorities.
In regard to Deputy Yates's amendment No. 142, it is intended that service areas will be available for use by all traffic using the motorway or protected road. I see no good reason for making a distinction between heavy goods vehicles and private vehicles or for the duplication of facilities. Of course, the management of a service area may provide for different car parking and truck parking areas in the same location. In regard to paragraph (b) of Deputy Yates's amendment, I do not envisage that any facilities other than properly constructed, located and regulated service areas could be built on motorways or protected roads. It would be unsafe to allow facilities to be provided other than at service areas and it would also reduce the traffic capacity of these roads due to the volume of traffic entering and leaving these premises.
My amendment to section 19 will allow the National Roads Authority, working through the local authorities, to secure the provision of parking facilities along the national road network. In the light of all these considerations I have to oppose Deputy Yates's amendment.
We are taking my amendments Nos. 141a and 142 also.
That is correct.
Perhaps the Minister could clarify the sort of service areas we are considering. I envisage that there are two types required; one is a lay-by with picnic tables where people could stop to have a meal, and the second is a service area whereby, as is commonly developed on an ad hoc basis on major roads, someone directs a chip van to “stop 2 kms ahead and refresh yourself”, and then one sees four juggernauts parked alongside it on the hard shoulder.
In relation to amendment No 141a, is the Minister saying that it is a misconception that no planning permission is required for these chip vans? I know from speaking to lorry drivers that they cannot stop in towns or at the local chip shop. They would block the main street of Arklow, for example, if they were to do so. It is not practical for them to stop in major built-up urban areas. Therefore, they need this type of service area and it should be regulated. For example, on Sunday week last Wexford Creamery were giving out flags and milk on the way to Croke Park, which resulted in a six car pile up because it was on a hard shoulder between Gorey and Arklow. There should be set areas on major roads for such a facility because at present no regulations exist. People pull in and out in a totally ad hoc manner. Full planning permission would not be required because it would not be a fixed structure. I am not sure if the Minister’s amendment No. 141 addresses this, it seems to deal only with motorways. There is a general need to have some sort of order in relation to service areas and they should be required to have planning permission.
The motorway service areas in Britain and on the continent are large places run by Fortes and they are located at regular intervals. I thought this section addressed that type of operation rather than a simple lay-by where a person can rest and avail of toilet facilities. My main concern, with no planning permission being required and with plans being prepared elsewhere, is the actual appearance of these facilities in particular areas. I feel that planning is necessary to protect the environmental appearance of important areas in some of our counties and local authorities would be in the best position to monitor this. Facilities can also be provided for large trucks to pull in when necessary.
We have, at present, roadhouses and pubs along roads that will no longer be used with the introduction of motorways, and they are providing a service. Are we now to understand that these pubs, which are traditional stop off places providing refreshments, food etc., will be barred from having entrances or exits to roads and from providing these facilities? That has been the type of operation along many of our major roads and the general public should know whether that tradition will remain.
I support the amendment for a number of reasons, first, for safety in relation to large trucks. We are still an agricultural country and I hope that will be the case for a long time. With the movement of cattle there is often a need for lorry drivers to pull in to check their load. It is often the case where drivers have to take off cattle to help an animal that may have fallen down in the course of transit get back up on its feet again. There is not facility on our roads for this type of manoeuvre to be carried out safely. There should be a lay-by provided for that purpose and also for the driver to pull in and have a rest. That would be in the interest of safety. Deputy Kavanagh's point in relation to roadhouses is very important. People's businesses must be taken into account. Many of them have been established over a long number of years and now, suddenly, they have been by-passed. That is not good enough; they are family businesses which provide employment.
There is also the seasonal tradition of children selling strawberries and early potatoes. There should be lay-bys located at fairly regular intervals for the sake of safety. One should not assume that traffic will be travelling at 80 and 90 miles an hour through the country. There is a slow and a fast lane and if people want to travel in a hurry the facility is there for them. There is also the hard shoulder where people can pull in and those are places of safety.
I do not want to get into an argument whether the Wexford people drank enough milk on the way to Croke Park or whether the Cavan and Monaghan people have adequate access to strawberries. Deputy Boylan is already sweet enough but if there is any need for more sugar let us have it. Deputy Kavanagh referred to the UK and other countries where there are service areas at 50 kilometre intervals which provide fuel, toilet facilities, snack food premises, telephones, adequate free parking spaces for cars, buses and lorries, picnic areas, police and tourist information. These could be developed into hotel and other accommodation.
We are planning these motorways with the idea of prescribing certain categories of traffic and speed for them and limiting access points to the greatest possible degree. If one is planning to do something like that, it would be absolutely illogical to include all the various systems that are in existence at present. We would have to envisage the possibility of caravans being used for the sale of chips. It runs counter to the whole purpose of a motorway, so there is no planning permission required for that type of operation. There is no planning permission for any other type of development except what is contained in the motorway proposal, which incorporates these facilities as part of the total aggregate of what is proposed within the motorway scheme. It would not make any sense to deviate from that and in terms of rest facilities, this is the way it should be done, not at intervals where a driver may feel he has the option to pull in. He is already aware of the route, he knows what the distance is up ahead, he knows the facilities that are available, including adequate parking. There is a safe entrance to and exit from these premises and limiting the opportunity to do that on these motorways is of paramount importance in terms of developing a proper road safety system. We are building motorways, which is a new experience for us. They will be developed on the basis of the experiences in other countries and they seem to be working well. There is no way we are returning to the haphazard, anywhere you like, system of the past.
The accidents which occur on major highways in England and throughout Europe are horrific and even the best vehicle can break down. In relation to the transport of animals, we are dealing with live animals and I regularly see truck drivers who are carrying cattle having to pull in because an animal fell down in their truck and they had to take action to get the animal back on its feet again or perhaps taken off the truck. We cannot get away from the fact that drivers are going to pull in but they have no place to do this. They have to use a hard shoulder or a wide space which may not be designated for this purpose but they are there in the interest of safety and should not be used haphazardly. I do not know how the Minister can control that, but we must bear in mind that this can occur.
That can be adequately catered for by the use of lay-bys or, indeed, the hard shoulder, for what the Deputy calls an emergency stop for a brief period to check something. We can address this problem without seeking a permanent regulation for what is an emergency situation. The Deputy is correct in saying that trucks can break down and the intention would be that in the future towing facilities would be available as a permanent arrangement to move vehicles that have broken down. This is part and parcel of how this scheme will be operated in the future.
I am not convinced by the Minister's reply about having no need for planning permission for these service areas. We all agree that the motorways should not be cluttererd up with individual guesthouses inviting motorists to pull in and have a light snack and so on, but we could develop large service areas at intervals of 30, 32 or 33 miles along the motorway. However, this could not be done without planning permission. Those of us who are members of local authorities and who attend planning meetings are aware of the difficulties that people have in getting planning permission for a house within a few miles of our national primary roads. There are difficulties in a county like ours in getting planning permission anywhere, indeed, but particularly near a motorway. There must be some input by the local authority to control these developments because of the various facilities that can be incorporated in them.
I am sorry if I did not explain myself clearly to Deputy Kavanagh and other Deputies. I went back and looked at the design for the motorway, which now has to go through all the various schemes involving environmental impact statements and assessments, possible compulsory purchase orders, all of the inspections that take place from the design stage, up to contract and then the implementation of that contract to produce the final result. Would Deputy Kavanagh, with his vast experience in a local authority, not agree with me that in the context of dealing with planning permission applications the difficulty often arises where something is being added to the landscape that the original road design did not take into account. What we are doing here is forward planning so that the whole process is subjected to a stricter regime than would be the case with normal planning permission applications which do not have to go through such processes. It is not as if you are granting planning permission willy nilly: it is part of the total structure, the objections, the views of the local people and business and commercial considerations, it is part of the overall plan. You have to bear in mind also that we are talking about limited space for the country as a whole. This is a very desirable development and I would not like anyone to think that because we say planning permission may not be granted on a particular route, that other developments which take place within the context of the overall motorway scheme are not subjected to the most rigid and exhaustive examination and determination as to the safety and other aspects relating to them.
The Minister is saying that obviously with this forward planning these locations will be known well in advance and, therefore, it is likely that the National Roads Authority will decide whether they should franchise these service areas to well-known companies, without anticipating any particular one. They may start with just a filling station and a place where one can park a car and get a light meal. I am not clear from the Minister's reply that eventually various other facilities such as an hotel can be added to the area and that is why I want to know if the planning process will be ignored, or do these plans have to be agreed in the forward plan as to the size of the various facilities available from the very beginning? It is quite obvious that, if for example, the Holiday Inn decide to build an hotel beside one of these service stations, they would be very welcome in most places. I wonder does that process not require planning permission from the local authority?
You cannot always prejudge the kind of developments that may emerge 20 years from now, but I want Deputies to think in these terms. We are shaping this design from the beginning, incorporating facilities which are a necessary part of the relief that motorists and heavy vehicle drivers require on these roads at various intervals which other countries have found to be adequate. It would seem that there is a strict limit on the number of these developments, and the type of services they can provide and that it will not be an open-ended opportunity to extend and provide services which are not required on that particular route. The National Roads Authority have a clear mandate and responsibility to adhere to that situation. Therefore, would it be unreasonable to believe that, in designing a motorway which incorporates these facilities, having spent the money on that road and increased the traffic load and speed on those routes, the road authority will, at some future time, want to extend willy nilly? The same strictures will apply to meet the realities of what the situation demands.
By not answering Deputy Kavanagh's question the Minister has answered it. It is quite clear that there is no requirement to seek planning permission on the part of the roads authority in these cases. One would think, for example, when we talk about motorways here that we were talking about Paris to Lyons or whatever. We are talking about small stretches of maybe five, six or at most ten miles providing relief round a town. There will not be a 50 kilometre stretch of motorway which is the distance referred to by the Minister, we are talking about fairly small stretches of road with existing services which can be easily supplemented.
It is notable that interest has already been expressed by some developers in, for example, the travel lodge hotel type development, large service area type developments. I know that there was an application close to the West Link Bridge for a fairly large service-type development and it would be quite wrong if those developments were effectively exempt from planning permission; it would introduce a whole new dimension to what we are doing here. It is one thing that the road itself will not require permission but if ancillary developments will not require permission then that is another problem.
The distances are as follows: Dublin-Dundalk 80 kilometres, Dublin-Kinnegad 64 kilometres, Dublin-Portlaoise 95 kilometres.
They are not motorways.
We are talking about fairly long stretches of road. Let us try to be reasonably consistent. As I said, I cannot prejudge what will happen in future in relation to developments like this; I am trying to gauge it in the same way as the Deputy but it does not seem likely to me that the extension of existing facilities on a motorway is an area for massive development when one takes into account the type of routes, the traffic on them and the speed at which it travels. Any development will be subject to authorisation by the local authority or the National Roads Authority. It has to be consistent with planning and must form part of that motorway scheme, subject as it is to all the various checks and balances contained in processes leading up to that.
I do not want to spend too long on these amendments. Having listened to all sides of the debate, I think that when you have a brand new motorway with a brand new service area which has been subject to an EIS, EIA, etc., that is one thing, but if you have later development or ad hoc development there should be some planning controls. I was going to press amendment No. 141a which deals with that matter, but I ask the Minister, between now and report Stage, to look at it again so that only those which are part of the EIA and EIS in the first instance will be covered. As the Minister said, he does not know what will be built in ten years’ time or if there will be different phases of development. There is right on both sides as it were; the initial planning is so detailed that the brand new service area does not require planning permission but future ad hocdevelopments may well require planning permission. I am happy to withdraw amendment No. 141a and we could resume the debate on it if the Minister does not table a more appropriate amendment on Report Stage.
I cannot guarantee to reach a better conclusion than I have already arrived at.
Amendment agreed to.
Amendments Nos. 141a and 142 not moved.
I move amendment No. 143:
In page 45, subsection (5) (a) (ii), line 43, to delete "disposal" and substitute "application".
This is a drafting point which keeps the wording in subsection (5) (2) (a) consistent with that in section 63 (b).
Amendment agreed to.
I move amendment No. 144:
In page 45, subsection (5), lines 46 and 47, to delete paragraph (b).
Amendment agreed to.
Section 52, as amended, agreed to.
Section 53 agreed to.