A compulsory Purchase Order issued by Sligo County Council to take over the back gardens of 11 houses in the village of Cliffony cannot be withdrawn at this stage, a council meeting was told yesterday. It is expected that the matter will now go before a Bord Pleanβla oral hearing.
Residents protested outside yesterday's meeting and a representative addressed councillors, asking for the controversial CPO to be withdrawn.
Sligo County Council wants the land to build social and affordable housing.
After the residents received support from all political parties, the county manger offered a period of consultation. Mr Hubert Kearns said he would inform An Bord Pleanβla that this consultation was to take place.
A council spokesman confirmed yesterday evening that no date had been set for the oral hearing. The council had been told that an inspector had yet to be appointed for the hearing.
Mr Declan Bree, of the Labour Party, said that the CPO could be withdrawn because the legal advice given to the council stated that while no mechanism for withdrawal existed, it was "going too far to say it couldn't happen".
The CPO, which was issued six weeks ago, relates to the back gardens of 11 semi-detached cottages close to the centre of Cliffony in north Co Sligo. Each cottage is on about an acre of land.
A spokesman from the Chapel Road residents' committee, Mr Armin Samali, who addressed the council meeting, criticised the lack of consultation before the CPO was issued.
He said the council was trying to take the gardens from "a group of society's most vulnerable people by force and without any regard for their heritage, their rights or lives". Of the 11 houses, seven are occupied, and four of these residents are pensioners. Another is in receipt of a disability allowance.
Mr Samali said the residents were not against social and affordable housing. He had a written mandate from 10 of them stating that they did not wish to sell and had objected to An Bord Pleanβla. The residents say other serviced land is available in the village and that the site is not suitable.
A spokesman for the council has acknowledged that "the consultation process was not as thorough as it could have been".
The council has said that after discussions with some landowners it became "clear that full agreement would not be reached" and that was why a CPO had been issued.