New Powers for Councils Welcome

5th March 2006, Press Release

Deputy Catherine Murphy has welcomed the new power to be given to local authorities whereby they can refuse planning permission for a development where there is a risk that the development will not be satisfactorily completed. The measure is included in the recently published Critical Infrastructure Bill which is before the Dail. Deputy Murphy had sought this measure when she raised the issue of unfinished housing estates in January "this will significantly strengthen the hand of Local Authorities and will weed out bad developers".

She also welcomed the report currently before Kildare County Council which deals with the issue of taking housing estates in charge. According to the report there are almost 11,000 housing units in estates where building is fully complete 4300 of these are due to be taken in charge by the Council this year. A further 10,000 houses in 98 housing developments were partially complete or had commenced development in 2005 and are being monitored by the Council during construction. All serving to highlight the resources required in a County with such a strong profile of development. Included in the report is a strategy to tackle the problem but it also serves to highlight the need for more national funding.

Minister for the Environment had following widespread publicity on the issue earlier in January undertaken a National review, each Local Authority was required to respond to a questionnaire by the end February. Deputy Murphy had been critical of the lack of information on the issue or how it was being tackled by the relevant authorities, "for the first time we will be able to both judge how local authorities are performing on the issue and also the adequately of their and powers and resources in order to respond to it."

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Posted by catherinemurphy on March 5, 2006. Filed under Latest News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.