An Taisce warns of lack of landscape protection

The omission of many environmental and landscape safeguards from the 1999 Draft Clare County Development Plan may allow for unwanted and damaging development, according to An Taisce. It said such safeguards were present in the previous plan.

Claiming it was very concerned at the omissions, An Taisce said: "At the very least, this development plan should afford the same level of environmental protection as the 1988 development plan and ideally this protection should be strengthened in light of current national policy and strategies."

An Taisce also said "the listing of only two amenities for protection shows a serious lack of commitment on the part of Clare County Council to this type of protection of amenities for the general public".

The environmental body also expressed concern over the omission of the council's 1988 objective "to prohibit development in the undeveloped areas of the Burren, where such a development would be obtrusive in the landscape and would detract from the area's remote quality".

An Taisce said the omission of this objective and others left the way open to the possibility of damaging development in the Burren.

As the acceptance of submissions from the public expired on Friday after the statutory three-month public consultation period, the council has also been criticised for its level of engagement with the public over the plan.

According to Green Party and Ennis UDC member Cllr Donal O Bearra, "the process of communicating with the Clare public has been reduced to sticking an advert in the paper and hoping people are motivated enough to respond".

"In this instance, the consultation process is simply going through the motions and fulfilling the minimal statutory requirements.

"It perpetuates an out of date system, alienates the public from local government and undervalues the customer - the public."

However, a council spokesman rejected Mr O Bearra's assertion that the council was doing the minimum legally required.

"In the consultation process, if there are material changes to the plan, we are legally obliged to put the plan on public display for a further month.

"We would consider putting it on display for two months if there was a demand.

"The development plan has been described as an environmental contract between the council and the public and the council fully acknowledges that, so it is not a case of going through the motions."

He said before the adoption of the plan, 10 meetings were held with council members, who were able to provide feedback from local development associations.

This resulted in amendments to the draft plan, which was published in May.