Spatial strategy a ‘waste of time’, says planning chief

THE blueprint for developing our villages, towns and cities lacks long-term vision and is “a waste of time”, a planning conference heard yesterday.

Our National Spatial Strategy has fast become "a devalued currency" and planning is the antithesis of what it should be, said Iain Douglas, president of the Irish Planning Institute (IPI).

Speaking on the opening day of the National Planning Conference in Mullingar, Mr Douglas said: "The planning agenda in Ireland is still being driven by short-term perspectives. The Government is clearly equivocating in its acceptance of the National Spatial Strategy through the overtly political gerrymandering of decentralisation, with National Spatial Strategy gateway/hubs accounting for only one quarter of the decentralised jobs, and through the guidelines on rural housing."