Planners ‘are closing down rural Ireland’

An urgent meeting is being sought with county planners amid claims that any lifeline is being eroded from rural villages across County Galway.

It has been stated that the difficulty in securing planning permission for one-off houses and small estates in the county is effectively signalling the death knell for rural villages.

A planning meeting is to take place later this month involving councillors and officials from Galway County Council with a view to addressing the problem.

Long-serving member of Galway County Council, Cllr Jimmy McClearn from Portumna has accused county planners of ‘closing down rural villages’ by their continued refusal to grant planning permission for one off houses.

“The depopulation of rural Galway has reached a critical situation. You can travel through dozens of our smaller villages every day of the week and witness no activity whatsoever,” he said.

The Fine Gael councillor gave an example of the village of Tiernascragh, near Portumna, where there used to be two shops, a pub and a post office but in recent years all of these have closed because of depopulation.

“Villages across the county are dying on their feet and much of the blame for this lies with planners who are refusing permission for houses for various reasons and they are effectively closing down rural Galway.

“They are using the excuse of planning applications being located in floodplains as a main reason for their refusal despite some applicants planning to build houses on elevated sites that will never flood. They are also frowning on septic tanks being provided,” Cllr McClearn added.

Between floodplains in East Galway and the location to Special Areas of Conservation in Connemara, frustrated applicants are being thwarted in their efforts to build their own homes in rural parts of the county.

Even the construction of small estates in rural villages, which was very prevalent during the housing boom, is proving a very difficult process as planners are reluctant to grant planning for developments that rely on their own sewage treatment systems.

See full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune.