Council’s plan for 5,000-home town rejected

Cork County Councils’s grand plan to develop a new town near Blarney has been rejected by An Bord Pleanála.

The planning board refused the project on the grounds that there was insufficient certainty that the proposed Northern Ring Road would be in place, insufficient housing density in the plan, and a lack of coherence and detail in its design.

The Monard blueprint, which dates to 2001, includes plans for 5,000 houses, a railway station, a secondary school, four national schools, and creches.

According to the local authority, the Monard plan was “realistic on the current state of the property market” and was designed to be in place in time for any recovery in the housing market and to be implemented over two or three decades. It was not a planning application to be implemented in the next few years.

The council’s deputy manager, Declan Daly, said the local authority is “naturally disappointed”. He noted that the board’s decision “is not in accordance with the recommendation of the board’s inspector”.

“We believe the issues raised in the board’s refusal reasons were addressed directly and in detail in the council’s evidence to the oral hearing in May. The council will need to study the board’s decision in more detail,” he said.

According to the council, the economic downturn means “unavoidable uncertainty” surrounds planned major infrastructures such as national roads.

“But the planning scheme had a robust system of thresholds, designed to prevent housing running ahead of physical and social infrastructure,” Mr Daly said.

Monard is in between Blackpool in Cork City and Blarney. The major urbanisation of the rural area had been opposed by the local community association.

An Bord Pleanála’s inspector, who was overruled by the board, had recommended the council be required to conduct a study considering future traffic patterns once 3,800 of the 5,000 planned houses were in place and the Northern Ring Road and its interchange connecting to the N20 were in place.

He said if the board did not want to conduct such a study, the scheme should be approved with conditions as it was in accordance with the proper planning and sustainable development of the area.

Mr Daly said: “There is a tension between insisting on the more demanding requirement that there be certainty that all relevant infrastructure will definitely be provided, sometimes far in advance of likely actual implementation, and a plan-led approach to development at strategic zone scale.”

Labour senator John Gilroy welcomed the decision by An Bord Pleanála.

The former county councillor said he was always strongly opposed to the Monard location, describing the likely site as “unsuitable” and “making no strategic sense”.

His preference, he said, was for Ballyvolane.

“What we need to do is to make a proper plan for metropolitan Cork. We should be developing land north of the city at Bally-volane which had been previously identified in a housing land survey in 2007.”

He said the city needs to be rebalanced, geographically and socially, and suggested more private housing clusters are required.

Monard, he said, was one of three strategic development zones identified in Ireland. Adamstown in Dublin is partly developed while Clonmagaddan in Meath never got off the ground.