A 20-year blueprint for the development of the mid-west region was yesterday adopted unanimously by the Mid-West Regional Authority. Gordon Deegan reports.
The Regional Economic Strategy and Regional Planning Guidelines have earmarked the Limerick-Shannon-Ennis corridor as a single metropolitan area that will act as a driver for the region and attract investment into the area.
The plan expects that the population of the mid-west will increase from 340,000 in 2002 to 380,000 in 2020.
It acknowledges that the region has a number of key weaknesses, including the relative remoteness of some rural areas with the need for stimulus and development. The guidelines seek a co-ordinated approach to the development of the Shannon estuary and propose that Lough Derg be managed in accordance with a co-ordinated plan.
At yesterday's meeting in Ballina, Co Tipperary, the project's co-ordinator, Mr Ciarán Lynch, said the document "achieves an appropriate balance between prescription and guidance, and between the need to create a critical mass at the centre of the region, while ensuring the continued viability of its more peripheral areas".
The chairman of the authority, Cllr Seán Mulrooney, told the meeting that the drawing up of the blueprint was "the most important work this authority has concluded in recent years".
However, Cllr Patrick Keane (FF) warned that resources had to be provided by Government to the regional authority to ensure success. "Otherwise it is a waste of time and it will need a change of thinking at the top level," he said.
The director of the Mid-West Authority, Mr Tom Kirby, told the meeting the guidelines would not in any way interfere with the work of local authorities.
To oversee the implementation of the plan, a committee is to be established to develop appropriate reporting structures and "provide a forum for the resolution of matters of major dispute".
However, An Taisce yesterday expressed its concern over the limited powers of the committee, echoing its concerns that the guidelines are set to make the same mistakes as those committed in the implementation of the strategic planning guidelines for the Greater Dublin Area.
In a submission to the authority, An Taisce claimed that the economic strategy and regional guidelines would fail "because of a lack of strategy for their implementation at all levels for a sustainable land use and transportation strategy".
The National Trust said that the mid-west guidelines failed to provide information on what action will be taken by the regional authority if individual councils allow development to proceed contrary to the guidelines' policies.
It warned: "If the current pattern of development in the region continues unchecked, increasingly large areas of the countryside of Limerick, north Tipperary and Clare will resemble an ultra-low-density suburb, undermining the potential for the development of adequate public service provision for urban, town and village areas".
With few material changes made to the draft, a spokesman for An Taisce said yesterday that its criticism of the plan remained. "We would be concerned over the adequacy of this proposed committee to ensure that local authorities abided by what is contained in the regional guidelines," he said.