Sir, - Reports on a recent meeting of Kildare County Council meeting invite comment. It is interesting to consider some of the quotes from councillors in relation to the County Plan and to the "strategy" which the Council has sent on to the Minister in the hope of obtaining his approval.
How many of the public are aware that it is now twelve years since councillors last performed their duty of revising this five year plan?
The implications of this are all the more serious when you consider that Kildare, according to the recent census, is the fastest growing county in Ireland. The pressures which County Kildare has been experiencing as a result of the uncontrolled expansion of Dublin should have made the most sensitive and well thought out planning strategies a priority. Instead, its planning has been irresponsibly neglected, while the destructive pressures themselves, which councillors should have been controlling and channelling, have been shamelessly courted, hyped and exploited.
This has been happening in opposition to all the best professional planning advice and against the repeatedly expressed wishes of the people. The Minister himself made it clear to the councillors that their approach to planning was totally unsatisfactory when he wrote to Naas last September.
The Chairman asserted that the Minister had been given "biased facts". I wonder does the Minister know that in terms of the Mid East Agreement signed by Kildare, Meath and Wicklow, Councillors have already zoned enough land to last the county for the next 50 years? We have this on the authority of the Kildare County Planner.
Does the Minister know that by a resolution of the meeting of January 6th, a town by town audit of already zoned lands was to be provided as a basis for further planning? This listed 2,850 acres already zoned for housing, or a minimum of 72,000 extra population. Does the Minister know that all discussion of this audit was ruled out of order at subsequent meetings where the strategy was discussed? Does the Minister know that by an agreement of F.F. and F.G. councillors, concluded outside of the Council Chamber any elements of strategy which were in the consultant's plan were excised and replaced by an agreed transparent wording designed to give them carte blanche to rezone ad lib from here out? The very word "strategy" itself was removed as one they could be "hanged on" later. It was a calculated risk on their part and now they are going around with their fingers crossed in the hope that the Minister will fall for it.
If councillors think it appropriate that the Minister should meet them to hear their views how much more appropriate is it that he should also meet and give consideration to the views of the ordinary people, the long sufferers in this saga? We will certainly be asking for such a meeting. Yours, etc.,
Secretary,
North Kildare Alliance for Better Planning,
Clane,
Co Kildare.