Cork county manager calls sit-in‘disgraceful’

CORK county manager Martin Riordan has described last Monday’s protest sit-in at County Hall as “disgraceful and unnecessary”.

However, yesterday he attempted to offer protesters an olive branch by promising to look into their claims that some planning permissions in west Cork have been turned down due to over-restrictive guidelines.

Mr Riordan said he was willing to examine up to 100 planning rejections in the region if protestors wished to furnish him with the files. He said after examining the cases he would then report back to county councillors on the matter.

More than 300 people attended a mass protest on Monday. About 60 of them staged a sit-in at the council chamber, disrupting a planned meeting.

Mr Riordan said he had hoped protestors would have “engaged in a reasoned and open debate on planning policy in west Cork”.

He pointed out that between 70% and 80% of planning applications in the region are granted annually.

Mr Riordan said the planning system provides an independent appeals process for applicants not happy with the outcome of the planning authority’s decision. “In the west Cork division the level of appeals in 2008 was 36, of which 16 were overturned by An Bord Pleanála ... when one further analyses this figure, it shows that in 14 of the 16 cases overturned, Cork County Council had in actual fact granted permission but An Bord Pleanála refused in these cases.”

Protestors said they were concerned that even more restrictive planning guidelines would be introduced with the adoption of Special Scenic Landscape criteria.

However, the manager pointed out that this criteria was withdrawn last December at the request of the majority of councillors.

Mr Riordan said the County Development Plan 2009/2015 does not contain the new proposal, but has retained restrictive policy as contained in the previous development plan.