The official opening of the recently upgraded Park Road in Rush has taken place with the Deputy Mayor of Fingal, Cllr Robert O’Donoghue, unveiling a commemorative plaque to mark the occasion.Among those in attendance were local councillors, Cllr Brian Dennehy and Cllr Cathal Boland; Fingal County Council Chief Executive, AnnMarie Farrelly; Senior Engineer Paul Carroll; members of the Council’s Project Team and representatives of the main contractor Total Highway Maintenance Ltd, engineering consultant O’Connor Sutton Cronin Associates, St Maur’s GAA Club and Gaelscoil Ros Eo. The €1.7m project, which was completed earlier this year after 11 months of construction, involved approximately 470 metres of full road widening and reconstruction with fully segregated cycling and pedestrian infrastructure with toucan crossing. It also facilitated the upgrading of watermain, storm and foul sewer infrastructure. The Deputy Mayor of Fingal, Cllr Robert O’Donoghue, said: “The upgrading of the Park Road was a major objective for councillors in the Rush-Lusk Local Electoral Area because of the need to improve access to St Maur’s GAA Club and Gaelscoil Ros Eo and it has made a big difference since it was opened to traffic.” Senior Engineer Paul Carroll said: “The upgrading of the Park Road forms an integral part of the Kenure Local Area Plan and will enable continued delivery of the LAP including improved access to adjacent housing and school development lands.”

The Lusk Heritage Group investigates the Boundary stones of the Remount Farm. They have located the majority of these stones, some were found in ditches and gardens in the locality of the Remount Farm. The stones have the War Department WD inscribed in the early 1900’s and were placed there in the absence of fences to accommodate the free movement of horses during their training for use in the first world war.

We in Lusk Action Group feel very strongly about the protection of nature, biodiversity and environment and we are engaging with Fingal County Council and other community groups to find ways of encouraging this. We saw recently how poor the hedgerow legislation really is and have been in contact with Minister Joe O’Brien regarding this. The Green Party have secured a commitment to fully review and reform the legislation so that it does actually protect our precious hedgerows, and that this protection is not subject to the morals of individual builders or developers. The builders of Fingal’s affordable housing scheme on Kilhedge Lane have agreed to postpone the removal of the hedgerow until after August. We have begun engagement with FCC regarding the building of an enclosed Multi-Use Games Area for our young people, including basketball court. Realistically, this will take a couple of years to deliver as funding for this will not become available until next January. We would like to sincerely thank John Fitzgerald of Foroige, who recently moved post to Blanchardstown, for all his amazing work with young people in Lusk over the last number of years and for his support and help since our forming. John has been a huge asset to our area and his energy and dedication never wavered. We wish him every success. Our loss is Blanchardstown’s gain. It is great to see work on Katie Hunt’s cottage, “Lusk Community Cultural Centre” well underway! This will be a wonderful amenity for Lusk in the future. Congratulations to Lusk Community Council for delivering this. We are enjoying the lovely flower tubs filled recently by Lusk Tidy Towns and the large flower tubs in the square which were done by FCC. Thank You! And the monthly community litter picks seem to be making a huge difference. Thanks to Willie McGee for all his hard work. We are encouraging everyone to “Adopt a Patch”, keeping an area near where you live tidy and clean. Email balswooparea@fingal.ie or environment@fingal.ie to get your litter picking pack. Enjoy your Summer! All in LAG .

As the first public consultation on the Fingal Development Plan 2023 – 2029 has now come to a conclusion, I would like to highlight some issues that I will be asking for the community of Lusk support in the coming months.Having reviewed the submissions pertaining to Lusk, I am disappointed to have read a number of submissions that are advocating for the expansion of the town boundaries to facilitate the rampant development of our town.We face submissions which seek to extend the boundary in the direction of Rush, which would whittle away the green belt between our towns and see a surge of additional traffic on our roads. Twinned with this we have a further submission for a large swathe of land adjacent to Chapel Farm. I will state again, that there are currently sufficient lands zoned to met the needs for sustainable development for the next ten years. The focus for this Development Plan for Lusk needs to be having the town settle and to have infrastructure and amenities brought into the town to service our young and growing community, not focussed on additional residential zonings. I will be calling on the people of Lusk to support me in this endeavour and asking the whole community to make submissions to this end when the second public consultation on the Development Plan opens in Spring 2022.

While still we are still training online and keeping our skills up to date, we are looking forward to the restrictions easing and beginning to train safely outside.It will be the first time since Christmas that we have trained together face to face.Here is just a few photos of our guys training online and one or two from the past. We hope everyone is keeping safe and hope to see you all soon.

It has been brilliant to see all of our members return to group training in recent weeks. The sports hub was back to being a hive of activity on Tuesday and Thursday evenings. Well done to all that were following individual 5k and 10k training plans over the last few months. There were some fantastic times recorded in recent Virtual races particular in the Portmarnock Road to Beach 5k with Sheila Bourke finishing 2nd. Best of luck to all members that have just commenced Half Marathon or Marathon training plans.

It’s been a quiet few months in the club so we were delighted to welcome back our Juvenile and Senior teams to Round Towers recently.There was great excitement in Thomas Ashe Park also with the return of our Nursery with a fantastic turnout on our first morning back after lockdown. We have also launched our online lotto which will take place every Thursday at 9.00pm

Fingal County Council’s Affordable Housing Scheme at Dun Emer in Lusk took a major step forward today when the first sod was turned on the construction site by the Mayor of Fingal, Cllr David Healy; the Deputy Mayor of Fingal, Cllr Robert O’Donoghue; and the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Darragh O’Brien, TD.The Chief Executive of Fingal County Council, AnnMarie Farrelly, and the Chief Executive of Ó Cualann Cohousing Alliance, Hugh Brennan, were also present at the ceremony which signals the next phase of the 51 home project. Construction on 39 affordable homes and 12 social homes will commence in a couple of weeks. Prices will start from €166,000 for the two-bedroom apartments; from €206,000 for the three-bedroom duplexes; from €250,000 for the three-bedroom terraced; and from €258,000 for the three-bedroom semi-detached homes.The Application Portal opened on May 4 and there has been a steady stream of applications for the affordable homes. The allocation process will be based on the Scheme of Priority with each application being processed on the basis of its eligibility.Applications for the Dun Emer Affordable Home Purchase Scheme can be made via https://affordablehousing.fingal.ie and an explanatory video outlining the application process is available at http://www.fingal.ie/affordablehousing (NB: websites not accessible through this medium)The Mayor of Fingal, Cllr David Healy, said: “Affordable housing is an important element in Fingal’s efforts to tackle the housing crisis and ensure that the housing needs of our communities are met. The application figures show clearly there is a demand for affordable housing.”The Deputy Mayor of Fingal, Cllr Robert O’Donoghue, who is also Chair of the Housing Strategic Policy Committee, said: “The scheme contributes to Fingal County Council’s aim to create and sustain communities with a healthy mix of tenure and housing types gives people a realistic opportunity to own their own home.”Hugh Brennan, CEO Ó Cualann Cohousing Alliance, said: “Ó Cualann Cohousing Alliance welcomes the opportunity to work with Fingal County Council on this important scheme and we do not underestimate the challenges of delivering 39 top quality affordable homes and 12 social homes for the people of Fingal during a pandemic. We are confident that with the continued support from Fingal County Council and all the stakeholders we will do just that, and, in under two years, there will be a thriving community in Dun Emer, Lusk, County Dublin.

The 4th May saw the opening up of construction again and after months of delay, enabled our con-tractor Pat Fitzgerald Construction to commence work on the Lusk Community Cultural Centre. Step one was to secure the site and start clearing it up. After many years of dereliction, cleaning up was a major task however for residents near by, this was very welcome. Nearby residents have lived with anti social behavior on the site for decades, so the removal of the old out buildings meant that this anti social opportunity was also being removed. Today we are back to the original front wall and gable walls that we are to preserve. The Cottage frontage is a key feature on Church Road and bringing it back to its former glory is the key objective.Over recent months, Lusk Com-munity Council has been working on new brand ideas for the Cultural Centre. In line with the branding of the Cottage Community Centre, Nicole Kearney, designed the new Cultural Centre branding. On the 14th May, we were delighted to welcome Minister Darragh O’Brien and AnnMa-rie Farrelly, CEO of Fingal County Council to launch the new branding in the company of Coun-cillors Boland, O’Donoghue and Dennehy.

“Lusk Tidy Town Committee have been busy over the past few weeks, tidying up banks, cutting back hedging, digging flower beds and planting shrubs and wildflowers. Over the years it has been my good fortune to have worked with people of energy and enthusiasm who have helped make our village of Lusk an attractive place in which to live. Thank you Pat Kelly”