Drainage grant to enable building of 2,000 houses

Almost 2,000 houses are expected to be built in the north Wicklow area as a result of a mains drainage grant allocated by the Minister for the Environment, Mr Dempsey.

The grant of £2.56 million is towards the provision of mains drainage schemes for the villages of Kilcoole and Newtownmountkennedy. The Minister has twice written to Wicklow County Council, which is debating a replacement of its 1989 Development Plan, expressing the view that low-density housing zonings in north Wicklow are unsustainable.

The Minister made the point that in the light of the Bacon report on housing, and given the fact that the DART would be extended to Greystones early in 1999, as well as the commissioning of a £26 million Greystones sewage treatment plant two years ago, it seemed feasible to expect a higher development density than the council envisaged.

However, a local Fine Gael councillor, Mr George Jones, has warned that allowing development "simply because there is serviced land available could lead to the problems of the 1970s in terms of social infrastructure".

While he was anxious to stress that he was not anti-development, Mr Jones said: "There is a lot more to infrastructure than serviced land. The people taking new homes are normally young families who need health centres, schools, and bus services as well as the roads and libraries and football pitches.

"I think there is a danger here that we could go back to the 1970s when there was tremendous growth and people moved into new areas and then they had to campaign for everything else. There is no reason why these things should not be planned in tandem.".

The Fianna Fail councillor for the area, Mr Dick Roche, however, welcomed the Minister's allocation, saying it would allow the Greystones/Delgany and the Newtown/Kilcoole areas to develop at their own pace, without an over-concentration of development in any of the villages.