Kilcoyne calls for Dillon to step in after Housing Minister rejects Castlebar Local Area Plan

A Castlebar-based councillor has called on Minister Alan Dillon to get involved after the Minister for Housing rejected the Castlebar Local Area plan.

Cllr Michael Kilcoyne called on Dillon, who was recently appointed as Minister of State at the Department of Housing, to act after Housing Minister Darragh O’Brien ordered a number of changes to the plan.

Echoing previous recommendations made back in January, Minister O’Brien said that the plan proposed by Castlebar Municipal District was inconsistent with national guidelines aimed at revitalising town centres.

The Minister ordered that three areas of land be rezoned as ‘New Residential’ and that one a zoned as ‘New Residential’ be de-zoned.

Minister O’Brien said that the draft local area plan, as it stands, was not in compliance with the recommendations of the Office of the Planning Regulator.

He also said the plan included ‘the extensive zone of land in peripheral and non-consequential locations’ which would encourage more car use and which was non-compliant with the current Mayo county development plan.

Speaking to The Mayo News, the Independent county councillor said the minister’s intervention raised ‘fundamental questions’ about the role of councillors in drafting local area plans.

The matter was discussed recently at the May meeting of Castlebar Municipal District. 

“We, as councillors, spent a lot of time developing these proposals, researching them. We were planning for the future of the town and the future of the district,” Cllr Kilcoyne said.

“What’s the point in the members of a county council doing a development plan, spending time doing a development plan, when the minister just overturns it?

Disappointed

“Secondly, we have the Minister for Planning and Local Government [Alan Dillon] in our district. The previous reports that were issued to Mayo County Council in other areas were done by the Minister of State. This time, the new Minister of State has stepped back. I’m disappointed that he hasn’t become involved in it.”

The Castlebar local area plan previously sparked a war of words between the sitting members of Castlebar Municipal District and local election candidate, Harry Barrett, when he accused them of ‘a shocking dereliction of duty’.

Mr Barrett, a former Castlebar town councillor, had argued that the plan should be more focused on the development of derelict sites in the Castlebar area.

When this was put to Cllr Kilcoyne, he insisted that councillors were trying to draft a plan that would both deal with vacant buildings and zone new sites for housing.

“I don’t think there has been a single meeting that the question of derelict sites hasn’t come up demanding that something be done about it,” said Cllr Kilcoyne.

“We’re no longer in a position to direct the manager because of the changes made in the regulations. Now it’s gone the other way. It’s gone to a stage when the manager and his people and the planning officials take the decisions.”

‘Contempt’

Cllr Kilcoyne then accused the government of treating Mayo with ‘contempt’ on the issue of housing.

“There are now more people in Castlebar than ever before. In terms of numbers, the minister is working, and the department is working and the planning regulator is working off the second-last census back. There is absolutely no commitment from the government in relation to developing, particularly housing, in Castlebar. There just isn’t,” he said.

At present, 202 social and affordable housing units are being progressed in the Castlebar area. All of these are expected to be ‘substantially completed’ by the end of 2027

“They are talking about 15 affordable houses for Castlebar, they are waiting since last September for a response from the department,” said Cllr Kilcoyne, in reference to Mayo County Council’s application to the government for 15 affordable units at Rathbawn.

“What I’m saying is that Mayo has been treated with contempt by the government.”