Wicklow County Council's granting of planning permission for a 263-house development on the outskirts of Delgany last week has dismayed local residents. They had believed the matter was closed when a similar plan for 294 houses was rejected by An Bord Pleanala.
The original application for 294 houses was "premature", An Bord Pleanala ruled last September. No development should take place on either side of the road, the R762, until infrastructure was upgraded, notably by the provision of a Delgany bypass, it said.
However, while the council has acknowledged that it has no money to build the bypass, it granted permission for the development to Avmark Ltd, setting 48 conditions.
These include a stipulation that, while 63 houses may be built in the first phase, the remaining 200 may not be built until work starts on the bypass. Also included is a development levy of £5,000 per house, which would be expected to go towards funding the new road.
Despite the conditions, the Delgany Residents' Action Group has expressed "utter shock" at the decision. Its co-chairman, Mr Patrick Pender, said that the council's interpretation of the Bord Pleanala decision "stretched the imagination".
"The actual wording of the inspector's report was that no development should take place `in the absence of the provision of a bypass to the south of Delgany village'."
Quoting from the report, Mr Pender went on to say that the inspector had determined that the R762 "could not be improved to cater for the existing level of traffic, even without the increase generated by the proposed develop ment."
He said that in March this year An Bord Pleanala had refused permission to another developer, Tower Homes, for 27 houses on another site on the same road. "It is hard to see how, in the light of this refusal also, Wicklow County Council can now agree to even 63 houses on this road."
When contacted by The Irish Times, the senior executive planner at Wicklow County Council, Mr Des O'Brien, said that the council had a protocol that only the county secretary spoke to the media. The secretary, Mr Bryan Doyle, was not available.
According to the planning file, Mr O'Brien is on record as saying that the council would have to show commitment to the bypass if planning permission was to be granted. Mr O'Brien cites the development levy of £5,000 per house as evidence of this commitment. Notes also refer to the possibility of the council raising a loan to fund the remaining cost of the bypass.
Following the granting of planning permission, the other co-chairman of the action group, Mr Walter Pfeiffer, said that local people were "utterly shocked".
"My children are about to start back to school at the national school adjacent to this site and this week we received a letter saying that, because of the lack of accommodation, the school would be forced to run a split day.
"This means that some children will be forced to go to school from 8.30 a.m. to 11 a.m. and older ones from 11 a.m. to lunchtime. This is the school that developers argued had capacity to take children from the proposed development. It's nonsense", he said.
Residents have called a public meeting for September 9th to renew their campaign against the development.
"Unfortunately, we will have to fight the good fight all over again. This application is a different application to the one which was struck down, even though the planning official, Mr O'Brien, acknowledges on file that it is similar", Mr Pfeiffer said.
"It means that we will have to appeal again. Why we have to do this, and what is exactly going on in Wicklow [County Council], we don't know, but perhaps it is time somebody asked them questions about their attitude."
Asked if this meant that the action group would consider an application for a judicial review of the planning decision, Mr Pfeiffer said: "Every avenue, including legal ones, will be explored."