The potential refusal of planning permission for a house at Killaghwuan, Castlebar led to one councillor asking for a site meeting for the councillors to inspect the site, and another questioning the validity of one of the councils reasons for refusing the application. The discussion took place at a meeting of the Castlebar electoral area committee on Thursday.
Senior planner for Mayo County Council, Mr John McMyler outlined the reasons for refusing the application, one of which related to the inspection of a trial hole which failed to meet the required standards.
However Fianna Fáil Cllr and chairperson of the committee, Al McDonnell, questioned the council’s right to check the hole and use it as a reason for refusal. Cllr McDonnell told the meeting that under the newly adopted County Development Plan if an application had a report that said the site was suitable and met all criteria for percolation, signed off by a qualified person, then the council can’t use that as a reason and as the application they were discussing did, the council had no right to use this as a reason. Cllr McDonnell’s views were supported by Independent Cllr Frank Durcan who added: “A qualified man wrote the report and he’s putting his professional head on the block here, and if anything goes wrong he’s responsible for it.” Cllr Durcan went on to call for a site meeting for councillors to inspect the site, but with time still left before the decision has to be finally made, the councillors asked the management to keep in communication with them over the issue to see how it progresses before they look for a site meeting.
