Planning review must answer many questions

The legacy of bad planning is evident everywhere in Ireland from the boom years of the early noughties. From urbanised settlements left without basic facilities such as shops or schools to the ghost estates that ring many commuter towns in the midlands, the reminders of the madness that overtook Ireland and made fortunes for landowners and developers are omnipresent. This county, with enough zoned land for a population of almost 320,000 - nearly double the present population of 163,000 - demonstrates quite clearly the eagerness with which councillors were prepared to rubber-stamp zoning applications at the behest of landowners and developers. When it comes to quoting examples of how not to do it in terms of planning, Meath continually finds itself in the firing line. As a result of the population explosion from the mid-1990s onwards, houses were built everywhere as towns like Navan, Trim, Kells, Ashbourne, Ratoath and Dunboyne mushroomed to cater for the numbers of city-dwellers swopping pricey Dublin for a house in a country town and a longer drive to work. As a result of what can only be described as developer-led planning, Meath embarked on a rezoning frenzy in the early years of this past decade as hundreds of acres were rezoned in different parts of the county to build more and more housing. This haphazard pattern of development showed itself in particular in the inability of local schools to cope with growing numbers of pupils and, as a result, prefabs became the norm in several growing areas of Meath. Thus, the announcement by Environment Minister John Gormley that he is to include County Meath in his review of planning laws and policy in six local authority areas is to be welcomed. The review will involve the appointment of independent planning experts to take a close look at the decision-making process in each of these counties. It will primarily focus on how existing legislation, Government policy and guidelines are being implemented and to establish if the councils have been acting in a consistent and transparent manner. A thorough review into how Meath County Council has exercised its planning functions could certainly help clear the air here, given the number of complaints and criticisms levelled at councillors and planners over several years for the way they permitted and encouraged development to occur. Concerns have also been raised over many years about consistency in planning approvals, the regime of enforcement and over-zoning of land. Now, the decisions that have been made will have to stand up to outside scrutiny for the first time to establish whether or not there has been any pattern of non-compliance with the council's own development plans. One councillor, Fianna Fail's Jimmy Fegan, has already come out saying Meath County Council has nothing to fear from this review since the 2008 County Development Plan was, in his view, "near perfect" and a work of "exceptional quality agreed between councillors and planners". It is, more than likely, a view shared by many of his colleagues. There is no doubt that poor planning and non-adherence to planning guidelines made a contribution to inflating the property bubble that has burst with such catastrophic force as to render Ireland the biggest casualty in terms of the construction bust in Europe, though bank lending practices and political inaction on the part of Government are equally, if not more, culpable in bringing down the house of cards. No-one should rush to judgement ahead of the report from this review but there will undoubtedly be lessons to be learned from decisions that were taken during the boom years. The result of the minister's move should be that those in charge of planning can justify decisions that were taken but that the excesses of the boom years are not repeated in the future and that local communities are not left in limbo as a result of mistakes that could have been avoided in the first place.