Madam, - I followed with much interest the recent series of excellent articles on commuter counties. Unfortunately, I must draw attention to the following statement in Frank McDonald's piece on Wicklow:
"The county council carried on regardless, blithely ignoring a veiled threat by Dempsey that he would invoke Section 31 of the 2000 Planning Act to enforce compliance with the SPGs. However, it proceeded to adopt the controversial local plans without sanction."
This is grossly inaccurate and does a serious disservice to members and management of Wicklow County Council.
What actually happened is that, following extensive and detailed discussions with senior officials of the Department of the Environment and Local Government in relation to compliance with the Strategic Planning Guidelines, I submitted a report to the elected members of Wicklow County Council detailing amendments to the draft plan for Newtownmountkennedy (and Kilcoole) which would ensure that the plans would comply with the Strategic Planning Guidelines.
The elected members accepted the recommendations in my report and the Department, by letter dated July 20th, 2001 (copy attached) confirmed that it would "raise no further objections in relation to the Council's proposals".
The draft plans were amended appropriately in accordance with the undertakings given to the Department and subsequently adopted by the elected members of Wicklow County Council. All subsequent town plans were drafted on a similar basis in order to ensure compliance with the Strategic Planning Guidelines and neither the Minister nor his officials raised any objections to these subsequent plans.
The overall position now in Wicklow is that all local area plans for towns adopted by the elected members of Wicklow County Council comply with the Strategic Planning Guidelines for the Greater Dublin Area.
I should be obliged if you would correct the serious misstatements in your article as soon as possible. - Yours, etc.,
EDDIE SHEEHY, Wicklow County Manager, Aras An Chontae, Cill Mhantáin.