Office of Planning Regulator insists it's not opposed to Mayo rural planning
The Office of the Planning Regulator (OPR) has moved to clarify that it is not opposed to rural planning in Mayo despite claims to the contrary.
Elected members of the Mayo County Council are currently at loggerheads with the agency over a recommendation by the OPR to include a ban in its recently-adopted county development plan on development on roads leading to national and secondary routes in order to ensure greater road safety.
In an effort to clarify its stance, the OPR has issued a statement on the matter to The Connaught Telegraph, which has been consistently highlighting the rural planning issue in the county.
The statement outlined: "The Office of the Planning Regulator (OPR) was established in 2019 to oversee the planning system in Ireland
"The decision to set up the OPR was a recommendation of the Mahon tribunal.
"The OPR does not set planning policy which is the job of the minister and government.
"Nor does the OPR determine or make local authority development plans. This is reserved function for local authority members only.
"One of the principal jobs of the OPR is to ensure that policy set by the government and regional assemblies is appropriately reflected and applied at a local level in statutory plans, such as county development plans.
"One of the national policies we consider when evaluating development plans are the Spatial Planning and National Roads Guidelines (2012), which set out planning policy considerations relating to development affecting national primary and secondary roads.
"Specifically, these guidelines stipulate that planning authorities should 'avoid the creation of any additional access points from new development or the generation of increased traffic from existing accesses to national roads'.
"The purpose of this is to preserve the capacity of national roads and to alleviate safety risks.
"To be clear, these guidelines do not set planning policy relating to public local or tertiary roads.
"Therefore, our submissions relating to the Draft Mayo County Development Plan 2021-2027 dealt solely with access to national roads and made no recommendations regarding the construction of access points or new developments, including housing, along these types of roads or on roads that lead to national routes.
"Over the last two years alone, Mayo County Council has received approximately €180 million in grant allocations for the improvement and maintenance of national roads in the county.
"This investment is crucial to the economic development and connectivity of the county and must be protected.
"The National Planning Framework (NPF), Ireland’s overarching policy and planning framework, also fully supports the concept of the sustainable development of rural areas by encouraging growth and arresting decline in areas that have experienced low population growth or decline in recent decades.
"Since our inception, we have made approximately 400 recommendations on local authority plans.
"The vast majority of these have been accepted, which points to the achievement of better planning outcomes.
"This means that, ultimately, the development plans councillors adopt, across the 31 local authorities, work together to collectively address pressing societal, economic and environmental issues in the public interest.
"The OPR is committed to working with Mayo County Council to ensure that its future development plan will be consistent with government policy to enable Mayo to continue to develop in a way that creates vibrant communities, protects the environment and supports sustainable growth."
The current situation in respect of the county development plan is that the Minister of State for Local Government and Planning, Peter Burke, has issued a directive to elected members of Mayo County Council to amend the document.
He cited the fact that material amendments to the core strategy of the blueprint "are not consistent with the national and regional planning policy and the proper planning and sustainable development of the area."
A public consultation process in respect of his directive is taking place, the deadline for submissions being September 5 at 4 p.m.