O’Keeffe pledges streamlined development

IN WHAT would herald a sea change in attitudes to planning, Junior Environment Minister Batt O’Keeffe has pledged the days of upside-down development are over and roads and schools will now be developed in tandem with residential housing.

Bolstered by €350 million in funding Mr O’Keeffe said there has “been a lot of bad planning decisions” in the past decade culminating in the scenes in Balbriggan in Dublin last August when the Department of Education was forced to ask Educate Together to open a multi-denominational school within in a matter of weeks.

A report of the department’s Commission on School Accommodation predicted more than 60 primary schools will be needed within five years for the north Dublin, east Meath and south Louth region following years of mushrooming residential sprawl. It is also estimated the country’s population will grow by a million by 2020.