Anna-Marie Flynn
IN an unprecedented move, Mayo County Council has been personally ordered to amend its County Development Plan by a cabinet Minister.
Minister for the Environment, John Gormley, TD (pictured), has interjected on the authority’s plans to halt rural decline in its 2008-2014 plan, by issuing a direction under Section 31 of the Planning and Development Act 2000. This is only the third time that the Minister’s powers, under Section 31, have been invoked. The move now leaves the status of the current plan, which is already in existence in law, hanging in the balance.
In a personal letter to the County Manager, Des Mahon, Minister Gormley said he was ‘disappointed’ with the plan on the grounds that it promotes ‘unsustainable housing development’ and claimed that ‘the Council has failed to secure a proper planning and sustainable development strategy for Mayo’.
Elected members unanimously amended the development plan at their May meeting to enable the increase of one-off houses in rural areas even though the move did not toe the line with the sustainable housing policy, regional planning guidelines or the National Spatial Strategy (NSS). The amendments were originally added to strong opposition from the authority’s legal advisor Michael Browne and senior planner Iain Douglas.
The Minister has now claimed the Council has not priortised enough development in the hub towns of Ballina and Castlebar, and noted that residentially-zoned lands could cater for a population boom of 79,000 – six times the forecasted level.
The Minister also said the plan goes against the guidelines for planning authorities on development plans to support hub towns. According to the cabinet member, such an ‘unstructured and unplanned approach’ could have severe impacts and even exacerbate existing problems such as ground and surface water quality.
Minister Gormley is now ordering that a two-page direction should be implemented by way of a variation to the Development Plan.
Yesterday (Monday), councillors refused to bow to the request of the Minister and said they would ‘stand united’ in the face of the direction. Fine Gael party whip, Cllr Paddy McGuinness, said Minister Gormley was ‘guilty of being absolutely and totally irresponsible’. He said the Department had four weeks to contact the authority prior to it coming into law in June, but it did not do so. In the meantime, thousands of euro has been spent on printing the document.
Fianna Fail’s whip, Cllr Al McDonnell told officials: “If we have to go to Europe we will. The fundamental principle of this plan is enshrined in all European policy. We have addressed rural depopulation, the most serious issue affecting our county and we will debate that at any forum. The Minister’s submission is misleading, misinformed and undesirable.”
The County Manager said he will have to examine the ministerial directive for provision of a full report in September and in the meantime the current plan will continue to apply.
