Planning 'driven by short-term perspectives'

The president of the Irish Planning Institute has said the National Spatial Strategy has been sacrificed to facilitate the speedier progress of the political agenda.

Iain Douglas, who was speaking on the opening day of the National Planning Conference in Mullingar, said that 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," he said.

He said investment in water and sewerage infrastructure in rural towns and villages was being invalidated by what he described as a free-for-all for housing in the countryside.

Douglas said that the rural housing issue is only one element of a much bigger issue related to the poor quality of much of Ireland's urban fabric and urban residential development, the under investment in infrastructure of our smaller towns and villages, and the "extraordinary cost of building land in serviced centres".

"On this basis, the commitment of Government to long-term strategic planning has to be questioned, as does the political will to redress regional imbalance in Ireland today", he said.