Green showdown

Councillors want showdown talks with Minister Gormley

Anton McNulty

TWO Mayo county councillors have indicated that they wish to have showdown talks with the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government to discuss his views on the draft Mayo County Development Plan.
Green Party Leader, Minister John Gormley (pictured) – who was jokingly referred to in the Council chamber as the Minister for Lightbulbs – will make his first official visit to Mayo this week, when he delivers the keynote address at the National Planning Conference in the Castlecourt Hotel on Thursday morning.
The Minister drew the ire of some county councillors in Mayo after he made submissions to the Council about the proposed new draft development plan, which plans to relax the rules for one-off rural housing. Such relaxation would contravene the Green Party’s pre-election manifestos on rural housing, which supports the concentration of rural housing in clusters around existing village settlements.
Cllr Johnny Mee and Cllr Frank Chambers, who are both member of the Strategic Policy Committee on Planning and Economic Development, have indicated to The Mayo News that they wish to discuss the draft development plan with the Minister. Cllr Mee voiced his deep annoyance at Minister Gormley’s ‘interference’ in Council business and said he wished to tell the Minister exactly what he thinks.
“It disturbs me that the Minister has grossly interfered with the work of the County Council and is hell-bent on reversing the developments made by the Council. We are the people on the ground who know what is best for Mayo, and this is the first time in all my life as a councillor where there has been such interference by the Minister. I will be at the conference and I would like to meet him to let him know exactly what I think of him,” said Cllr Mee, who is also chair of the SPC.
The National Planning Conference, which is being organised by the Irish Planning Institute, will run for two days this week, Thursday and Friday. The focus of this year’s conference will be on the theme of achieving sustainability, and will consider if our planning system is only paying lip service to the common good.
Fianna Fáil councillor, Frank Chambers, told The Mayo News that he hoped the Minister would use his visit to Mayo to outline any concerns he has over the draft development plan.
“We will try to meet the Minister to get his point of view and I am sure his visit to Westport will allow him to express what he thinks of the plan. He is known in some counties to have thrown the foot out on policies and it is important he lets us know what he thinks. If there are any problems this is the time to tell us because we don’t want to hit a stone wall later down the road,” he said.