Ballinrobe development plan

Ballinrobe anger at development plan delay

Claire Egan

‘THE lights might as well be turned off in Ballinrobe’ if development continues to be stifled there through the application of an outdated development plan.
That was the assessment of local man, John Sweeney, in Ballinrobe Community School last Thursday night, and it was echoed by several other angry speakers at a heated public consultation meeting, at which it was announced that the town’s new development plan will be delayed for a further six months, while a preferred route for a bypass is selected.
Hundreds of jobs and millions of euros in investment and tourism have already been lost to the town in the last 18 months, due to planning applications being refused, according to Ballinrobe Community Development Council Chairman, David Hall. Another speaker said the ‘economy of the town is on its knees’, while one accused Mayo County Council’s planning department of ‘strangling’ the town.  Over a hundred people attended the meeting to hear a progress report from Mayo County Council on the draft development plan. However, Ms Tanya Stanaway of the Forward Planning department of Mayo County Council informed those present that, following a recent meeting of the Steering Group responsible for the project, it was decided that it was not possible to proceed with the town development plan until the N84 bypass route had been selected. Following work on the matter by the National Roads Authority in recent months, the possible routes will be put on display by the end of this month, Ms Stanaway said, with the final route to be chosen six months later.
The 2008 Development Plan for Ballinrobe will then be finalised six months after that – most likely at the end of next year.
“It is high time that Mayo County Council began to take Ballinrobe and the needs of the town seriously. They have put this town on the back burner for long enough and it is ridiculous that they don’t have any knowledge of the routes at this stage,” said Cllr Patsy O’Brien yesterday (Monday).
David Hall was equally scathing. “Any expansions in Ballinrobe have been held up because no route has been selected by the NRA and we are still operating off an out-dated town development plan. We had the opportunity of a top-class hotel in the town, at Crann Mór, providing over 400 jobs, yet it was refused because of the bypass route. Prior to last week’s meeting we were led to believe that the development plan was under way,” he said.
Speaking at yesterday’s (Monday) electoral area meeting, Acting Director of Services, Mr Patsy Bourke, told councillors that he expected the ‘preferred bypass’ route to be identified by mid-2008. However, he did concede that a town development plan would not be in place until the end of that year.
He offered assurances that planning applications, not in direct conflict with the bypass routes under consideration, would be viewed sympathetically under the existing plan.