Council vote for rezoning ignores planners' advice

There has been a fundamental breakdown in trust between the planners of Clare County Council and its elected members, says Cllr P.J. Kelly, leader of the council's Fianna Fáil group.

At this month's meeting of the council, members ignored the advice of planners and voted to rezone large tracts of land on the outskirts of Ennis.

In all, council members pushed through four separate rezoning motions as part of the Ennis and Environs Development Plan, ignoring advice from the council's senior executive planner, Mr Graham Webb.

In one case, according to Mr Webb, the rezoning of lands for housing at Shannaway, Ennis, would be inappropriate. He pointed out that the lands were in an area of open countryside and remote from the town.

In another instance, councillors were told that a proposal to rezone land for housing development could affect the water source of Ballybeg Lake, while in a third case Mr Webb also advised against rezoning, saying there was a considerable amount of public pressure in the Roslevan area of Ennis to reduce the level of planned growth in the area.

In each case, Mr Webb's advice was ignored and the rezoning motions received cross-party support with a small number of councillors abstaining.

The amendments are to go on display today to invite submissions from the public.

At the council's October meeting on Monday night, Cllr Kelly warned that more was to come, with the councillors seeking to amend the County Development Plan.

Cllr Kelly's call received support from all sides, with 18 councillors voicing their opposition to the implementation of the County Development Plan which, they argue, makes it too difficult to obtain planning permission.

In response to a claim by the council's head of planning, Mr Ger Dollard, that the council's settlement location policy was not inhibiting the development of permanent houses in west Clare, Cllr Kelly said: "Am I dull or I am a fool as I read this, because facts prove otherwise?"

Cllr Tom Prendeville (FF) claimed that the council's city planners were bringing urban standards to rural areas and "trying to railroad the county's young people into towns and villages away from rural areas".

The county manager, Mr Alec Fleming, said the councillors had set the planners an impossible task in asking them to be flexible on one hand and consistent on the other when it came to deciding on planning applications.

In response to the clamour to make planning permission easier to obtain, Mr Dollard pointed out that in the last three years the council had granted permission for 3,685 single houses throughout the county.

During the same period, the council had refused 457 applications - 12 per cent of the total of applications.