New code to link housing plans with schools

LOCAL AUTHORITIES will be obliged to make sure there are enough schools to meet demand when drawing up development plans, under a major piece of planning policy being proposed by the Government.

The new protocol - which will be backed by regulations - is designed to prevent problems where rapid population growth in certain areas has led to inadequate school places to meet demand.

In Balbriggan, north Dublin, in 2007, new schools were established as an emergency measure when existing schools were unable to cope because of a rapid growth in population on the back of a house-building boom.

The Schools Planning Protocol is a joint initiative of the Department of the Environment and the Department of Education in response to that situation.

It will be published by both departments tomorrow.

The protocol will set out a code of practice for local authorities to ensure the planning system is more efficient in identifying quickly where there is demand for schools and locating appropriate sites that will allow the timely construction of schools.

It will be underpinned by new regulations that will require local authorities to adhere to the code in its development plans.

The initiative has been driven by Minister of State for the Environment Michael Finneran in conjunction with the senior Minister John Gormley and Minister for Education Batt O'Keeffe.

Briefing material seen by The Irish Times states that it will integrate the provision of schools more closely with the drawing up of development plans.

Sources close to the project have said that it will make sure that where large new housing developments are being built, there is adequate school provision for all the families that will inevitably live there.

It stressed the requirement of county councils and city councils to engage with the Department of Education before land is zoned or rezoned for substantial residential development.

The initiative is one of a number of new measures on planning being organised by the Department of the Environment.

Mr Gormley will present three new regulations to the Oireachtas Joint Committee on the Environment tomorrow, aimed at streamlining the planning code.

One of the regulations also relates to schools. It will provide exemptions for minor school development works and temporary school facilities, such as prefabricated buildings.

In future, small extensions to school buildings, or what are described as "temporary school facilities" will not require planning permission.

A further regulation will also make certain renewable technologies exempt from planning permission requirement. Last year, such exemptions were introduced for solar panels, micro wind turbines and heat pumps for domestic use.

The new regulations extend the facility to renewable energy technologies for use across industrial, agricultural and commercial sectors.

Irish Times

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Communities fear slow death of country life

HURLING and football clubs in neighbouring rural parishes are being forced to amalgamate in order to survive, it was claimed yesterday.

The disclosure came as national planning policies came under attack.

A conference heard families were being forced to live in urban areas as the population in rural areas continued to declined.

Enforced urbanisation was at the core of planning policies and planning applications for one-off houses in rural areas were being refused in order to swell the populations of towns and cities, it was stated at the Irish Rural Dwellers’ Association (IRDA) annual conference, in Killarney.

One delegate had underlined the difficulties facing organisations such as the GAA.

Speaker after speaker voiced dissatisfaction with planning policies which, it had been claimed, were being fully endorsed by the Government.

Most political parties, it was suggested, saw “enforced urbanisation” as a means of saving money.

IRDA acting secretary Jim Connolly said enforced urbanisation was at the core of planning ideology in Ireland.

Prof Seamus Caulfield said CSO figures, due out next week, would show a drop in those living in dispersed settlement patterns in rural areas where, according to the 2002 statistics, 33% of the population lived.

In some parishes in north Mayo, he said, there had been a 42% decline in the last 20 years, which was a startling statistic in less than one generation.

“If the grouse or snipe or salmon declined by over 40% in half a generation, there would be a crisis declared for that species.

“Why isn’t there a crisis declared for homo sapiens,” Prof Caulfield asked.

He said so-called critical mass, to create cities, was one of the more daft ideas of the National Spatial Strategy (NSS). “The idea that rural people should be urban fodder is a daft idea but also an insult to rural people that they should be used as fodder to build up urban populations,” he said.

Independent Offaly Cllr Johnny Butterfield told the conference that Tullamore, Athlone and Mullingar were designated a gateway under the NSS. In Tullamore, the population was set to grow by thousands, but this could only be achieved at the expense of rural areas by restricting planning in those areas.

“Developers in these towns are licking their lips,” Cllr Butterfield said.

Irish Examiner