Clare officials at odds over draft development plan

The drawing up of the draft Clare County Development Plan was yesterday described as "organised chaos" at a meeting of Clare County Council

The process was thrown into disarray last month when it emerged that two versions of the draft were in circulation.

This followed the publication by the council of a different plan from the one approved by councillors.

The draft plan was due to be adopted on October 1st. However, the Mayor of Clare, Cllr Tommy Brennan (Ind), ordered that legal opinion be sought on the implications of the two plans being circulated.

The formal adoption of the plan has been postponed until November.

At the council meeting yesterday, county solicitor Mr Michael Houlihan said nothing illegal was done in the process of drawing up the plan.

He said that changes made to the draft plan formed part of the process of improving and enhancing it.

However, leader of the council's Fianna Fáil group, Cllr P.J. Kelly, said: "We have now to get legal opinion on the drawing up of the plan for the second time. This can only be described as organised chaos and I hope it doesn't come back to haunt us in the courts."

He added: "This is a very, very serious situation if the draft plan is challenged in court."

However, in reply, Mr Houlihan said there was a considerable chance that any court challenge would fail. He said he was supported in a legal opinion by senior counsel Mr James Macken, and this was circulated to councillors.

Mr Macken said the councillors should continue drawing up the plan.

"Concern has been raised that the draft, as placed on public display, may be invalid and that, as a consequence of this, the process of adoption of the plan may be fatally flawed.

"In my opinion, that is not the case and the process can and should continue to its completion."

Mr Macken said he was instructed that there were only two areas in which the two plans differed that might be a cause of concern to councillors.

One related to the addition of two new relief roads to the plan, while the second dealt with the council's contentious Settlement Location Policy which contains a general ban on non locals building one-off homes in large swathes of the Clare countryside.

However, Mr Macken said that the change relating to Settlement Location Policy "was made to clarify the policy, to relax restrictions on rural housing and was discussed with a council sub-committee".

He added that "no defect or flaw in the process has arisen that prevents the council continuing, as required by Section 12 of the Planning and Development Act, 2000, towards the eventual adoption of the development plan in whatever form of wording the councillors may decide".