Wexford council outlines stance on one-off rural houses amid ‘scaremongering’ in local communities
Wexford PeopleA member of Wexford County Council’s (WCC) planning department has moved to address “scaremongering” regarding the building of houses in rural parts of the county. At the November meeting of the Gorey Kilmuckridge Municipal District (GKMD) Mr Eoghan Nolan responded to a query from Cllr Mary Farrell on the council’s policies regarding one-off rural housing.
“Our rural policy is to assess what’s in the development plan and look at the social and economic need,” said Mr Nolan. “But as long as applicants comply with what’s in the development plan there’s no real change in policy.”
However, according to Cllr Farrell there remained some confusion regarding what can and can’t be built on rural sites.
“It’s a dreadful situation where families can’t build, where farmers can’t give sites to their children,” she said. “This is becoming a sticking point in many communities. There was a lot of scaremongering that you couldn’t build, that farmers couldn’t give sites to their families and people couldn’t buy sites from farmers, it caused mayhem.”
Having received phone calls from concerned parties, Mr Nolan was aware of “those rumours circulating” but reiterated that his department wanted “to help as many people build in their local area as possible”.
"We offer pre-planning meetings where we facilitate those interested in building and answer their questions. I don’t know where this all came from but nothing has changed from our perspective.”