Planning permission to rebuild pyrite affected homes 'unfair'

HOMEOWNERS who have to knock and rebuild their houses due to pyrite should not have to apply for planning permission.

Some 350 Mayo home owners – mostly in the north of the county - whose properties are affected by pyrite, are availing of a remedial grant scheme, which allows them repair or rebuild their homes. The maximum grant available under the defective concrete blocks scheme is €275,000, or 90% of the cost of the works.

However, as people try to move forward, Councillor Gerry Coyle was 'disappointed' that they were having to get planning permission to knock and rebuild their homes.

What happened, he asked, if someone objected and it goes to An Bord Pleanála. Or you have to get a new septic tank and there's an issue with a trial hole.

“I don't know how people lived in the past at all,” Councillor Coyle told a Westport-Belmullet Municipal District meeting. “Most of them had the cattle in the house with them. And now you have to have a trial hole for a septic tank.”

The situation was that you could build 40 houses on an acre in Castlebar but you couldn't build one house on 40 acres in Erris.

People building identical homes to what they had knocked should not need planning and he asked Mayo County Council to write to the department to do away with this 'nonsense'.

The councillor suggested they should be able to deal with applications through the part 8 planning process used for council projects, using State money.

Cathaoirleach Councillor Sean Carey said the fact there was an existing house which was being knocked and replaced and it now needed planning was 'unacceptable' if you were building the same house again. “It is totally unfair,” he said.

Homeowners still had to come up with 10% of the cost involved and also pay rent while out of their homes when they are being rebuilt.