Planning laws restrict rural resettlement, group claims

HUNDREDS of families can’t settle outside Dublin because strict planning laws won’t allow them build country houses, a resettlement group has said.

Rural Resettlement Ireland (RRI) chairman Jim Connolly has criticised planners over their failure to encourage building in depopulated areas. Almost double the number of planning applications are being rejected than accepted in some rural areas, he said.

And rural communities are losing out on millions of euro because resettlement groups can’t get planning.