KILDARE County Council's development plan for the Clane area was challenged in the High Court yesterday.
Mr Justice Geoghegan gave leave to Ms Margaret McEvoy of Loughbollard, Clane, to seek a judicial review of the plan and to have it quashed.
Mr Edmond Honohan SC, for Ms McEvoy, read an affidavit by her in which she claimed the council had misused its powers. There was an obligation on the council to make a development plan for the entire county.
Ms McEvoy said such a plan had been adopted by the council in 1985 - 11 years before the adoption of the plan to which she objected. Planning legislation required the council to review or make a new plan within a five year period.
The council could not make a new plan outside the five year period unless the Minister for the Environment extended the time. The council had sought an extension but the Minister had refused the council's request.
In these circumstances, said Ms McEvoy, the purported Clane plan was invalid. It appeared from correspondence that the Minister had also formed the view the Clane plan was invalid.
She claimed a comparison of a March 1995 plan and the plan later adopted, which she had seen, showed a huge increase in the size of area to be zoned residential.
Ms McEvoy said she agreed with the case made by the Minister in a letter to the council last September that the Clane plan failed to take into account the proper planning and development of the rest of Co Kildare.
Mr Justice Geoghegan said he was satisfied that Ms McEvoy had made a case for a judicial review. It seemed the Minister and his Department were concerned as to the legality of this plan and had given reasons which seemed to raise an arguable case.