This week’s Prime Time Investigates exposed a number of bad planning decisions that are continuing to be made particularly in Fingal County Council.  The programme revealed that the Council is continuing to add to the

Prime Time investigates has exposed bad planning decisions on Fingal County Council

 oversupply or zoned lands for residential use. Last July cllrs. approved a Local Area Plan for lands at Oldtown and Mooretown in Swords owned by property developer Gerry Gannon whose loans have been transferred to NAMA.
 
Mulhuddart Labour Cllr. Patrick Nulty said:

“As one of only six Fingal Cllrs who opposed the Oldtown Mooretown Local Area Plan I strongly welcome the investigation by Prime Time investigates of the continued bad planning decisions made by Fingal County Councillors. Despite some 152 ghost estates and a large oversupply of zoned residential land a majority of councillors particularly from Fianna Fail, Fine Gael and Independents are continuing to support large land rezonings in Fingal.
 
“After all the revelations since the 1990’s regarding bad planning, speculative re-zonings, over zoning of land, destruction and erosion of our green belt and countryside it is beyond belief that a majority of Fingal County Councillors persist in re-zoning land against all the principles of sustainable planning.”
 
“In addition we saw the spectical of Mennolly Homes owners flaunting their wealth while Hansfield Station remains closed”.
 
“Vote after vote during the Fingal Development Plan meetings in October of this year resulted in decisions been made with complete disregard for the National Spatial Strategy, the Sustainable Rural Housing Guidelines and the Development Plan guidelines issued by the Department of the Environment Heritage and Local Government.”
 
“The best thing that we can do for home owners in any of the 152 unfinished ghost estates in Fingal is stop re-zoning more land for residential use. It may take years for these half built estates to be finished – however zoning even more land and passing even more Local Area Plans will only delay completion even further.” 
 
“Some of the worst re-zoning decisions this year by the Council included:
-          the re-zoning of even more land in Tyrlestown for residential use
-          the rezoning of agricultural fields for industrial use despite a huge supply of land already zoned for industrial use which remains undeveloped
-          the re-zoning of yet more land at Ridgewood Swords for residential use
-          the passing of a substantial number of local objectives for one off houses which destroy the countryside and contravene sustainable planning guidelines