The current draft of the new county development plan was described as having "some very disturbing stuff in it" by a councillor this week.
Speaking at the January meeting of the Castlebar Municipal District, which took place on Wednesday, Fianna Fáil councillor Al McDonnell hit out at the draft plan as it currently stands, as well as at some of the submissions made by government agencies to it.
He told the meeting: "There is about 1,000 pages to be studied and there is some very disturbing stuff in it, in terms of the submissions from Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII ), the Planning Regulator and the North West Regional Authority (NWRA ).
“There is a striking similarity between many of the submissions that these three organisations made, which would indicate to me a degree of collusion between the officials in all three, and in relation to the NWRA, I would be amazed if the elected members gave the nod of approval to the submission that was made to Mayo County Council. I’ll be asking some of the members to see if that submission was put before the elected members.
"As a consequence of all these submissions, as stated, what it means is that all development, all private houses, commercial and retail, will be prohibited on all roads that ultimately lead to a national road.
"If we leave Castlebar and drive to Shrule and on any road, with the exception of the speed limit areas, such as in Ballyheane and Ballintubber - any road left or right - all development will be banned, from here to Shrule. Leave Castlebar and go to Balla - all roads leading left or right are also gone, also Kilmacrade, Manulla, are all gone.
"The N59, a national secondary road, runs from Leenane to Westport, to Newport, Ballycroy, Bangor Erris and goes to Crossmolina and into Ballina down to the Sligo border - all development there is also gone, that’s just two examples. You have the n17, n58, n16, a number of other roads to look at.
"As it is written, unless we change it, and we will be changing it - this was slipped in and it was slipped in under spatial planning and national roads, ministerial guidelines which are issued under section 28 of the Planning Act of 2000 and amended later on.
"This document has been misquoted by TII and there is a very important omission which was designed to mislead us as elected members. This is extremely serious stuff, I’m just giving an example.
"The same organisations want to change the population density of this county, it is currently around 70/30 rural to urban, they want to change that to 60/40, which means enforced migration into the towns of between 13,000 and 15,000 people in the five-year duration of this plan.
"These are just a few things to note in the plan, there are other things as well, such as little subtle references to the transfer of populations into the tier-one towns of Castlebar, Ballina and Westport.
"There is 1,350 submissions in all. I almost went demented over three weekends studying it - in relation to Ballyvary it was suggested that housing developments in excess of 15 houses should be allowed; but the executive response was, no, these people should be directed into the urban areas, this is the kind of stuff we have to deal with.
"I will be making a proposal and will be hoping for an all-party agreement on it, I have gone through it in great detail and it is very serious stuff, I thought I would bring it to the attention of all."
Fine Gael councillor Cyril Burke pointed out another part of the plan which he said he completely disagrees with, telling the meeting: "There is another serious thing and it is on the areas of urban pressure and an 'economic need' would include applicants who are dependant on the local area for employment.
"A 'social need' will include applicants who have a long-standing local intrinsic connection to the local area where they seek to build their first home.
"If you have someone from the local area and they moved away to college and bought a house in Dublin and then their job brings them back and then that is their second home, that’s blocking them."
Fianna Fáil councillor Blackie Gavin added: "Is there someone just writing this? They have no clue. There will be no houses outside of Castlebar, on the environs. It is unbelievable what is going on, they are shutting down rural Ireland completely."
Fine Gael councillor Ger Deere added: "Whatever we do we have to stand united on this, we need to build up the rural areas. Where are they coming from with these proposals? We all should stand firm on this, we are destroying rural areas, football teams and schools, and that is where it is starting."
