The time has come for existing town boundaries to be looked at as well as extensions to them, said one county councillor at this month's meeting of Mayo County Council.
Fine Gael Cllr Peter Flynn raised the idea at the July meeting of the local authority which took place in the Royal Theatre this week, during a discussion on the new county development plan, which will incorporate a number of local area plans for towns.
Cllr Flynn told the meeting: "The key part of the overall development plan will be the creating of the local area plans. I would like to formally propose as part of this whole process that we would review the town boundaries right around the county.
"The world has changed, you can see the old town boundaries are no longer relevant and we need to make sure we capture the real true towns and we are not missing pieces."
The importance of looking at the boundaries of towns in regard to major infrastructure projects that will be delivered into towns and making sure they meet the needs of growing towns, was backed by Sinn Fein Cllr Gerry Murray, who said: "The local area plans determine the level and scale of infrastructure that is going to come to local communities and towns.
"I saw that in relation to Irish Water, they are rolling out infrastructure that is not fit for purpose, it is not fit to meet the future needs of small towns or big towns in this county.
"I would strongly urge the executive to have a preliminary meeting with Irish Water because if we restrict the size and scale of local area plans we are restricting the size and scale of infrastructure that is going to come to our local communities.
"When we met with Irish Water they said they have no say in the matter and the person who determines it is the Energy Regulator and we are going to need clarification on that - it will be very hard for elected members to adopt local area plans in circumstances where those plans will not deliver infrastructure that those towns and communities need to grow."
