Big problem with rural planning - Mayo councillor

ACHILL has been hit with four recent planning refusals for homes, in addition to two applicants being told not to bother submitting files.

Local Councillor Paul McNamara has hit out at Mayo County Council refusing applications because of scenic views.

And he has highlighted the loss of local businesses and schools lost from the Achill parish over the past 15 to 20 years:

* Ten small shops closed

* Nine hotels and pubs closed

* Seven post offices closed

* Five schools closed

This is what has been lost, he said, and now they were finding it impossible to get one-off houses across the line.

In the last eight weeks, four applications for one-off dwellings in the area have been refused, he told the monthly Westport-Belmullet Municipal District meeting. Three received letters and the fourth was pulled at the final hour when told they were going to be refused.

On top of that, two individuals had contacted him, one in Castlebar who wants to move home to Achill and the other living in Galway. Both were told at pre-planning meetings that they don't have a housing need and they would not be looked at favourably.

National planning dictates that a person seeking planning must show they have a genuine social or economic need. Yet, if someone presents themselves as homeless off a bus from Dublin, Mayo County Council has an obligation to put them up overnight.

There is a new national planning statement, he continued, which acknowledges there is a problem in the rural areas. It is also acknowledged by government that rules differ in all planning authorities. “And why is Mayo leading out in refusing applications because they are in a scenic area and will obstruct the views and landscape,” he asked.

Three of the applications he spoke about were not on the sea side of the road, yet the council could put forward an application for 20 social houses on the sea side of the road, which he supported, and they got it through no problem.

But two kilometres away a home was refused. And 200 metres from the refused site, four homes have closed in the last few years as the people in them have died. Yet a man born and reared in Achill who emigrated because of the crash and now wants to come back, he can't, because of scenic views.

There's a big problem with planning in Mayo County Council, said Councillor McNamara. How can we allow application after application to be refused because of scenic views in a coastline area that's one of the biggest in the country. Everywhere you drive in these areas there's a view and common sense is not prevailing.

Someone is making these decisions, he said, and they are wrong, and the CEO is standing over them, and that was a major problem for him.

Different counties are leading out differently on this, but Mayo seems to be a 'no go' for applications along a scenic route, and something needs to be done about it.

Put to him that decisions are made through the guidelines in the county development plan and local area plans, Councillor McNamara said under no circumstances did elected members sign up to a plan which gave refusals in rural areas.

It was also pointed out that where there were three refusals for the period, there were also 21 approvals.

The point was made by Councillor Peter Flynn that the development plans are ultimately decided by the minister and Office of the Planning Regulator who shoved stuff into it and removed objectives they had included. They had made recommendations that were thrown out the window.

Rural areas will die if they keep refusing planning, Councillor Johnny O'Malley commented. There are townlands dying as young people can't get planning.

“It's people that make a community,” Councillor Sean Carey stressed. “If you don't have people in an area you don't have anything.”

Director of services Joanne Grehan said there may be an opportunity in the national planning statement to look at rural Ireland in a different light.

* Funded under the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme