TaraWatch

TaraWatch calls on you to join poets, musicians and revellers at the annual Summer Solstice celebrations on the Hill of Tara, beginning on Sunday, 20 June. Festivities begin at noon and run all through the night, until sunrise on Monday, the 21st.  If you are an artist, and want to participate, please contact us at info@tarawatch.org You can also register for this event on Facebook, receive updates, and help us promote it.

We will have some special guests, including Hope Ebsworth, a leader of the Wangkumarra people in Queensland, Australia. He has written a book and written a book Bury me at Tartulla Hill, and is travelling to Tara to highlight the plight of his people. Wangkumarra land is at the juncture of Queensland, New South Wales and South Australia. Since 2001, Wangkumarra people have received an annual payment of $60,000 in compensation for Santos’ destructive mining and exploration activity on their land. This is a pretty good deal for Santos, who rip half a billion dollars worth of oil and gas out of the land every year.

This years celebration at Tara will be a more sombre affair, as the M3 motorway will have opened on 4 June. However, we will continue to lobby for the protection of Tara, against future developments, and highlight the Government’s ongoing mistreatment of Irish heritage, such as the N2 Slane bypass at Bru na Boinne World Heritage Site.  An information session on the proposed Tara Skryne Landscape Protection Area, and the nomination of the Hill of Tara to be a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Tara is the most beautiful place in Ireland to experience the solstice, so please come and join us.

[click map to enlarge]

PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT ACT 2000
NOTICE OF THE PREPARATION
OF A DRAFT LANDSCAPE CONSERVATION AREA
FOR TARA SKRYNE

Notice is hereby given pursuant to Section 204 (4) of the Planning and Development Act, 2000 that Meath County Council has prepared a Draft Landscape Conservation Area for Tara Skryne.

The Draft Landscape Conservation Area comprises of a written statement and a boundary map. A copy of the Draft Landscape Conservation Area will be available for public inspection at the following locations from Tuesday 4th May 2010 to Wednesday 16th June 2010 during normal office hours:
• Planning Office, Abbey Mall, Abbey rd, Navan, Co. Meath;
• Navan Town Council, Watergate St, Navan;
• Navan Library, Railway St, Navan.
• Dunshaughlin Area Office, Drumree rd, Dunshaughlin
• http://www.meath.ie.

Copies of the Draft Landscape Conservation Area are available for purchase from the Planning Planning Department, Abbey Mall, Abbey Rd, Navan, Co. Meath. Please contact Lynda Thornton @ 046-9097566 or lthornton@meathcoco.ie

MAKING A SUBMISSION

Meath County Council hereby invites any interested parties to make submissions in respect of the Draft Landscape Conservation Area to the undersigned before 3.30 pm on Wednesday 16th June 2010. Any submissions or observations so made will be taken into consideration by the Council before the making of the Landscape Conservation Area for Tara Skryne. Submissions or observations in electronic format can be e-mailed to planningsubmissions@meathcoco.ie before 3.30pm on Wednesday 16th June 2010.

Reports and specific instruction are available here

Families face planning curbs under new Tara buffer zone plan

Meath Chronicle – Wednesday 12 May 2010

Proposal described as ‘sop to M3 motorway protestors’

A controversial proposal to throw a large buffer zone around the Tara and Skryne area has led to claims that hundreds of acres of land across central Meath will be sterilised, providing significant obstacles for local residents applying for one-off rural housing permission. One local county councillor has said that generations of local families in an area stretching from Tara and Skryne to Kilmessan, Garlow Cross, Walterstown and Dunsany could be prevented from building homes if the Tara-Skryne Draft Landscape Conservation Plan proposed by Meath County Council, in conjunction with the Department of the Environment and The Heritage Council, is formally adopted by the local authority.

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