Scenic area planning warning

LOCAL authorities could be forced to pay millions of euro in compensation if they refuse planning permission to protect the natural beauty of an area, according to the Irish Rural Dwellers Association.

The IRDA believes county councils are facing massive compensation claims unless they can defend planning decisions in the courts. The lobby group has discovered a report carried out for Clare County Council by CAAS Environmental Services that warned about this legal minefield.

The expert independent report said: “It is inconceivable that designations on the grounds of natural beauty alone could be legally justified.” The council commissioned the report in 1997 when planners and councillors were reviewing the county’s development plan. IRDA spokesperson Jim Connolly says the council could soon be hit with a wave of court actions.

“They may well be exposed to almost unlimited litigation and claims for compensation if it can be proven in the courts that planning refusals based on natural beauty cannot be legally justified,” Mr Connolly said.

Mr Connolly, who is also leader of Rural Resettlement Ireland (RRI), claims hundreds of families can’t settle outside Dublin because strict planning laws won’t allow them build country houses. He has criticised planners over their failure to encourage building in scenic depopulated areas. Almost double the number of planning applications are being rejected than accepted in some rural areas, he said. And communities are losing out on millions of euro because resettlement groups can’t get planning.

The group wants to build houses in rural areas and rent them to families seeking to leave towns and cities. RRI was set up in 1990 in an effort to stem population decline in Co Clare, and the voluntary group has helped 500 families relocate to depopulated areas in 19 counties.

“We have areas that have suffered huge population losses and we can’t get planning permission because the region is visually sensitive,” Mr Connolly said. “In moving to the country, families free up much-needed housing in urban areas. At the same time they bring life back to many closed-down rural area,” he said.