Buying or building new properties in certain parts of Wicklow is going to get harder, writes Edel Morgan

Well-known for banning outsiders from living in parts of its county, Wicklow County Council is now further restricting the movement of Wicklow people from some parts of the county to others.

Under its new County Settlement Strategy, people from what are classed as "urban areas" of Wicklow - like Bray, Wicklow town and Delgany - are now completely excluded, like those from outside the county, from buying or building new properties in certain categories of small villages, like Glenealy and Laragh, unless they can prove a first generation family connection. Previously, they could buy or build a new home in these villages if they were within 8kms of their existing dwelling.

There were restrictions already in many parts of Wicklow as to who can buy a new property or build a house but the new County Settlement Strategy introduces a bamboozling array of levels and categories of large, moderate and small growth towns and rural clusters and, in some cases, imposes further limits on who can live where. Before the strategy was adopted, "level six" towns - like Dunlavin, Avoca, Kilmacanogue and Avoca - offered half of a new homes development to the open market, while the other half was limited to people who have lived or worked in Wicklow for a year. Now 25 per cent will be available on the open market, 25 per cent to those living and working in Wicklow for a year and 50 per cent to those living and working in Wicklow for five years.

You can just picture the chaos during viewings of new homes developments where people with deposit cheques are being turned away because the quota of outsiders or people who have only lived in Wicklow for only a year has been exceeded. Unsurprisingly, most local estate agents are vehemently opposed. All of the agents I spoke to referred to the restrictions as "unconstitutional". "It's a free country," says Niall Hassett. "I live in Wicklow and I wouldn't like it if someone told me I couldn't live in Dublin."

Estate agent Margaret Short of Gordon Lennox Services Ltd is of a similar view. "We all have the right to live where we want to live and not be dictated by Wicklow County Council," she says. She currently has three sites in Newcastle on her books which people with no connection with the immediate area are ineligible to buy. The sites are advertised on the internet and on brochures as available for purchase to "locals only".

Estate agent Ann Lait believes the plan is unworkable and wonders how Wicklow County Council is going to police it. Lait reckons that, if someone was to challenge the restrictions on constitutional grounds, they would be successful. "I would also be curious as to what exactly is the thinking behind the restrictions," she said.

Apparently the thinking, according to a press statement by Wicklow County Council, is that "locals" should have "a reasonable opportunity to purchase or build new houses in their own area at a reasonable price". All very admirable, but do they also need to protect people of considerable financial means?

In November, I reported on a scheme of luxury houses at Racefield in Newcastle where houses were from €930,000 to €960,000 and came with a "locals only" restriction. Eligibility to this elite enclave involved proving you either work full-time in the county or have been resident there for at least a year.

Some believe these rules - which are also in evidence in parts of Kildare, Meath and some Gaeltacht areas - discriminate against house-buyers on the grounds of where they currently or previously have lived?

A spokesperson from Wicklow County Council says that, not only are they constitutional, they are "based on the principles of the National Spatial Strategy and planning guidelines for the greater Dublin area". She says anyone can buy a second-hand home anywhere in Wicklow or a new house in urban areas - like Bray, Greystones and Delgany - and that some areas, like Blessington and Newtown, have increased the quota available to the open market from 50 per cent to 80 per cent. "It's Government policy, and it's on the way everywhere. It will be happening," said the spokesperson.