This article is from page 7 of the 2006-02-21 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 7 JPG
IT IS not planners that Fianna Fáil councillors should be venting their frustration over one-off housing – it should be the Government.
That is the message from Graham Webb, who as Senior Executive Planner, was the top council official behind the drafting of the various Council Development Plans over the past five years that included the contentious “locals only” policy.
“These are frustrations in relation to policy, the councillors can’t be seen to be attacking their own party in public and it’s their own party that are bringing in these policies,” said Mr Webb
Councillors can’t explain away the policies, “because they are not policies with Clare in mind and that frustration has to be vented somewhere and so what better way than to throw it at the local planner,” he said.
Speaking in a personal capacity, Mr Webb said, “It’s inevitable. Planning is a political job, so when the politicians aren’t getting their way and they need to lash out, the most political person they lash out is the planner. It happens across the world, it is not unique to Clare.
“The councillors have a lot of angst, because they are out there day-in day-out, meeting people who are chewing their ear off because x, y and z can’t get planning for a house on their homeland for various reasons. Most of the time the land isn’t good enough and some of the time, (it’s for) policy reasons.”
On the call by councillors to ease restrictions on building one-off housing, Mr Webb said, “They’re entitled to call for it, but it is short-term gain for long term pain.
“It undermines the ability to build up the very settlements that we are trying to convince the Government that we need resources for and that we need infrastructure for.”
Mr Webb said that calls to change the council’s rural housing policy in the County Development Plan “doesn’t fundamentally alter the basic plan, the basic plan is a hugely successful document, it is one small part of it – rural housing – four pages out of a 70-page document.
“The rest of that 70 pages is what we rely upon for the economic development of the county, so if we have one particular row over four pages, so be it, it is not going to stop the world.”