“We have an existing road going onto the site and I thought we had a good case for planning.”

“We have an existing road going onto the site and I thought we had a good case for planning.”


WITH easy access to the public sewerage scheme in Mulranny and the water mains, SeΡn Barrett thought he had hurdled all the barriers in front of him when he and his wife Geraldine applied for planning permission for a house at Murrevagh. The home was to be built above his grandmother’s home where she still lives and it was located beside the farm yard which he was to run.
Mayo County Council granted planning permission last year but within a month of that decision the NRA had appealed to An Bord Pleanala on the grounds that the development was considered ‘an unacceptable intensification of an access onto the heavily trafficked N59’. An Bord Pleanala agreed with the NRA and refused planning permission last October.
“We were very disappointed with the decision I have lived here all my life and wanted to build a home here. We have an existing road going onto the site and I thought we had a good case for planning. The entrance is in the middle of a straight stretch of the N59 with a view of 400 yards each side. I knew of some people who didn’t have existing entrances who have been denied planning but I thought if you had an existing road I had everything tied up. I am up and down the road every day to get to my farm and I can’t see how a new house will create extra traffic. I am annoyed but there it is no good beating your head against the wall,” he said.
SeΡn currently lives in a 100 year old cottage which he said was not suitable and is unsure of what he will do next. The NRA said they might look favourably on him if he built on land along the Golf Link Road and while SeΡn said he would consider it, it was not that suitable.
“If I do that I will have to cross onto the N59 at least ten times a day to get to the farm. If I had cattle calving I would have to be up and down day and night but if I had the home where I wanted I would only have to use the road once or twice a day. It is a crazy situation.”