From the initial planning stages it has been a long struggle for the Mayo County Development Plan 2008 to 2014 to come to fruition to the satisfaction of the elected members and the Department of Environment and Local Government under the direction of Minister John Gormley. But last Monday the new development plan, which has taken up many hours of planning, discussion, meetings and angry exchanges across the country, finally came to a conclusion when the elected members voted in favour of a new ministerial directive issued by Minister for the Environment John Gormley on September 16 2009, overturning his previous directive of July 11 2008.
The original development plan was passed by the previous council on May 6 2008, but the Minister issued a directive to seriously vary the plan. The members of the council refused to do so and sought out a number of avenues of approach to take in relation to it, including getting a legal opinion on their options. They were invited to send a delegation to the Joint Oireachtas Committee for Environment and Local Government under the chairmanship of Sean Fleming TD, which recommended in its report that senior officials from the Department of Environment meet with the elected members and the council management, which they did on March 23 2009. The report was also critical of the intervention of the Minister without any prior consultation with the council.
The main issue of concern for councillors was that the Minister’s original directive paid no head to the needs for planning and development of people in a rural county. His directive was forcing people who wanted to build a home into urban areas, rather than in rural areas where they were from, thus the depopulation of rural Mayo continues to increase rapidly.
Severe restrictions lifted
The new directive by the Minister has seen approximately a 70 per cent reduction in lands that were described as being rural areas under severe urban pressure, where planning applications that would have been granted would have been severely restricted under the original direction.
Finna Fáil Councillor Al McDonnell who was one of the major architects of the plan along with former Fine Gael Councillor Paddy McGuinness, told Monday’s council meeting: “It’s a good day for the county, the Minister changed his mind, not because he wanted to but because he was forced to by this council and all the members who signed the plan and stood behind it. Our success was bringing 22 national representatives from all political persuasions to speak on behalf of us and rural Ireland and its decline at the Oireachtas Committee. In their report, they found the Minister was morally wrong in getting involved in our area without consultation. While the new directive is not perfect it does offer a much better solution than the one in the original directive.”
While the new directive was warmly welcomed by all the members of the council, there were still some issues that grated with some of the members. Cllr Seamus Wier pointed out: “I see on the map that Knockmore is under strong urban pressure, I’ve no idea how we are under strong urban pressure at all because I can’t see it. But if we are I’d like to see the improvement of the roads in Knockmore to be top of the list to deal with all of this strong urban pressure.” Fellow Fine Gael Councillor Gerry Coyle also hit out at the Minister’s original direction calling it “a slap in the face for the people of Mayo, to have a Minister who has never slept a night in rural Ireland to tell us what to do. Some things have changed but there is a lot more to do. What I’m really glad about is that somebody was listening to the people on the ground on this issue.”
Newly elected Independent Councillor Gerry Ginty told the meeting:, “I’d like to compliment the councillors who did such good work on this in very difficult circumstances, they were up against someone who has a very narrow view of the country. I’m no lover of the Green Party even though I would consider myself and environmentalist, they give environmentalists a bad name.”
Senior planner for Mayo County Council Mr Ian Douglas spelt out some of the provisions included for in the plan, including that the council would be looking at a way to allow people to access regional roads where there is justification for it. That in regard to areas which are under strong urban pressure, according to the plan, consideration would be given to people who have links to the area, such as farmers, sons and daughters of people who live there, returning emigrants who previously resided in the area, those taking over the running of a farm, people whose work is linked into the area such as farmers, the forestry industry, school teachers, and people who have a medical condition which would not be suitable to living in the urban environment, as long as their applications are in line with proper planning procedures.
