Planning laws - Bypass farce of planning legislation

With the daily tribunal disclosures, it should hardly come as a surprise to people that our planning laws are developing into a farce.

John O’Connor, chairman of An Bord Pleanála, warned at the launch of the board’s annual report for 2005 that billions of euro have been squandered on building bypasses around towns.

New retail parks, industrial estates, hotels and housing developments have been allowed to develop along the bypasses, so that bypasses are needed for the bypasses. Developers have naturally targeted parcels of land near roundabouts along the new bypasses, and Mr O’Connor was particularly critical of local authorities for facilitating the trend.

Bypasses were built to ease travel between various towns and cities. Part of the aim was to allow town centres to be developed, but instead they are being systematically rundown.

“We moved the road to avoid the town,” Mr O’Connor said. “Now we are moving the town on to the road and we will have to move the road again.”

The planning system itself is getting cluttered. Last year, there were 5,503 planning appeals and 78% of those were handled within the 18-week time frame required by law.

But this year the number looks like exceeding 6,000 and only 53% have been handled on time.

It seems we now need a bypass for the law. Is this confused planning or planned confusion?