Mayo has taken one of the most important steps in becoming a major player in the renewable energy field this week, with the adoption of the draft renewable energy strategy for 2010 to 2020.
“This is one of the most important items we could ever deal with in this council,” county manager Peter Hynes told the elected members. “We need to be ready to adapt to the changes in renewable energies and have a strategy laid out to put Mayo to the front of this field.” Mr Hynes also paid tribute to the staff in the council who put the plan together. “This is one of the first policy documents of this level that has been completely done in house without the use of consultants. When people are asking where are all the staff who worked in planning before and what are they doing now, this is the kind of work they have been doing.”
In the plan the council has marked out areas of lands into tier one and tier two category areas where lands would be suitable for wind and other renewable energy start ups. The tier one areas are the preferred areas, with tier two the next in line. However director of services for Mayo County Council, Seamus Granahan, told the meeting: “We have earmarked different areas into tier one and tier two, but that is not to say that any other area is off limits. All applications will be dealt with on their own merits. But the tier one and two are the areas we see that could be the easiest to get going on. We have the pre planning process where any interested applicant from any area can come in and talk to us about their application.”
Independent councillor Michael Holmes raised the tier one and two lands being close to special areas of conservation, however Mr Granahan told him that they had looked into all these areas and the tier one and two areas were outside these areas.
The draft plan was welcomed by all the councillors. “I’d like to endorse the manager’s comments, this is a very important document that gives us the road map to having a proper plan to deal with renewable energy,” said Cllr Eugene McCormack. “It will show that in Mayo we are welcoming to people and companies who are involved in this industry and that we want them to come here.” Cllr McCormack also paid tribute to former councillor and now TD, Dep Michelle Mulherin, for her work on this issue for the past number of years.
Independent councillor Frank Durcan also acknowledged the work that Dep Mulherin had put into this plan over her years as a councillor, and proposed that the draft plan be named after her, which was seconded by fellow Independent councillor Gerry Ginty. However, Cathaoirleach Cllr Michael Burke pointed out that the council does not normally name things after people until they have died. County manager Peter Hynes also told the members the work that the council has done in this plan has been recognised nationally as the council had been approached by the Department of Environment and Sustainable Energy Ireland to help both bodies to put together a national plan which will be rolled out countrywide.
