LOCAL AUTHORITIES are being warned that failure to comply with the 2002 National Spatial Strategy (NSS) will mean loss of "increasingly scarce public funds" for investment in the regions.
Ciarán Cuffe, Minister of State for Planning, said "such strategic and co-ordinated investment is essential to 'pump-prime' the potential of the regions and position them as key contributors to Ireland's national growth as the current difficult economic cycle ends".
Publishing the NSS Update and Outlook Report 2010, he referred to patterns of commuter development that require significant investment in expanding new areas while existing infrastructure and services in many city and town centres were underused.
"For example, the core populations of Cork and Limerick cities actually fell in the last inter-censal period (2002-2006) while the commuter catchment areas around the major cities and regional centres grew at a rate well above the overall national average," he said.
As the report notes, almost half (48 per cent) of total urban population growth between 2002 and 2006 took place in urban areas with a population of less than 10,000, although these towns accounted for only 28 per cent of the national total.
"Population growth in some [ NSS] gateways and hub towns has underperformed, while smaller towns, villages and rural areas within a 50-80km commuting range of major cities and towns have experienced significant population growth," it says.
This was driven by a very flexible local zoning process, improvements to roads and other transport infrastructure and difficulties in bringing a major boost in housing supply onstream, especially in Dublin but also in other designated regional "gateways".
Referring to the property bubble, a source close to Mr Cuffe said: "The banks could have given out all of the cheap credit they liked, but if speculators did not have a casino to gamble in - the Irish planning 'system' - then the financial Armageddon would not have occurred."
He stressed that the new Planning and Development (Amendment) Act would "ensure that the speculative zoning frenzy of the past decade or so can never ever happen again", backed by an 80 per cent "windfall tax" on the increased value of land zoned for development.
Mr Cuffe said the Update and Outlook Report 2010 was "a reaffirmation of the Government's commitment to the National Spatial Strategy as the national spatial and forward planning framework to guide more balanced regional development and inform capital investment priorities".
The emphasis now would be on making city and town centres a major focus for significant future housing and employment, targeting investments to deliver the Government's "Smarter Travel" objectives and to maximise the use of existing infrastructure.
New regional planning guidelines, aligned with the Government's capital investment priorities for 2010-2016, would be used to monitor "the integration of national, regional and local planning, identifying key ongoing development and investment requirements" .
The report says Minister for the Environment John Gormley and Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan "will consider the timing of a revised Gateway Innovation Fund to . . . support employment creation, economic development, competitiveness and regeneration".
Allocations from the promised €300 million fund were "deferred in the light of the deteriorating economic circumstances", however, the report points out that the recent capital spending review "makes provisions for a revised fund of €200 million commencing 2012".
At national level, it says that stronger mechanisms are needed to prioritise investment "within a tighter budgetary framework", based on the spatial policy laid down in the National Spatial Strategy and recognising the investment requirements of gateways, hub towns and rural areas.
"Targeted policy responses may be necessary to secure a more sustainable development pattern and a return on the State's investment under Nama in taking over property portfolios, often in strategic locations in and around the main gateways and hub towns."
Dealing with trends, the report says population growth is likely to be much slower over the next five to 10 years than in the period since 2002, and the "most plausible scenario" is that natural increase alone will become the main element of population change.