County blueprint ‘should be mothballed’

Cork County has enough land zoned for housing to fill 3,460 full-size soccer pitches with new homes.

It has been suggested that no more land should be earmarked until the economy had picked up significantly.

The suggestion comes from a former county mayor who wants a major blueprint for future development of Co Cork mothballed for at least two years. Fine Gael councillor Tim Lombard also wants the €3.5m put aside for the draft plan to spent on more pressing services.

Cork Co Council will today debate a proposal to put the County Development Plan (2015-2021) on the long finger.

Mr Lombard is seeking support to urge Minister for the Environment Phil Hogan to agree to his proposal, and insists there is no need to zone more land for housing.

“We currently have 2,590 hectares of land zoned for residential housing. A full-sized soccer pitch is 0.75 hectares,” said Mr Lombard.

“Therefore, we have enough land to fill 3,460 pitches. We have enough land zoned for housing to last us a decade, even if the economy went into a growth spurt which, unfortunately, I don’t see happening at the moment.”

The process, whereby a six-year plan is drafted, has already begun. However, Mr Lombard feels it should be stopped now or a lot of time and money will be wasted.

“The first meeting on the new plan should be held on June 21,” said Mr Lombard. “After that, there will be two public consultations and three reports by the county manager. The development plan has to be then formally adopted by Jan 8, 2015.

“The blueprint is mainly compiled by staff at the forward planning unit in the council and they have a budget of €3,593,902 to deliver it. This is the council’s own money, it doesn’t come from the Department of Environment.”

Mr Lombard believes the department’s staff could be redeployed for other tasks and the money be used for more pressing issues.

“We have a lot of our [local authority] housing stock which need repairs,” he said. “Some of the money could be used for that. A lot of our roads are in a poor condition and potholes need filling. We also need money to develop some tourist projects. The money ring-fenced for the County Development Plan would be better spent on these things,” he said.

Former environment minister John Gormley enacted legislation in 2010 that took away local authorities’ power to delay publishing their development plans.

Mr Lombard wants Mr Hogan to rescind that law. “We could then use the money we have saved for discretionary spending,” he said. “When the economy picks up again then we can enact a new plan. It doesn’t make sense to go-ahead with it at this time.”