Huge drop in planning applications in county and city
LIMERICK County Council has to deal with more enforcement actions than any other local authority- despite a huge drop in planning applications.
Senior planner Gerry Sheeran, explained:
“The level of enforcement has increased. We’re getting complaints about unauthorised and incomplete developments.
“The latest government figures show that Limerick County Council had more enforcement actions than anywhere else in the country, with 470 in 2009”.
He revealed that panning applications had dropped by almost 50% in recent years, from 2,444 in 2008 to 1,272 last year.
“We now see hardly any housing schemes, it is mostly for one-off housing”.
In February 2011, 23% of permissions were one-off dwellings; 20% for extensions; 15% for retention; 7% for change of use and just 1% for residential schemes.
Although the number of applications has dropped, the workload has remained the same due to enforcement actions.
“We have lost 40% of our staff due to the embargo on recruitment and also the loss of temporary workers.
“The whole section of planning is engaged in forward planning, this includes 18 local area plans”.
Meanwhile, planning permission was granted for just eight new homes in Limerick city in 2010, according to data from the Central Statistics Office.
In the final three months of the year, no such planning permission was granted.
In the county, 222 planning applications were granted, or just 25% of the 854 permissions granted for dwellings in the county Limerick in 2005.
Permissions for other developments in the county has dropped from a high of 775 in 2007, to just 122 last year.
Planning permission in the city peaked in 2005, when planning was granted for 31 individual homes and 89 other developments.
It slowly declined to 22 in 2009, and stood at just eight last year, while permission was granted for 48 other developments in the city.
Applications under other developments include extensions to existing homes; agricultural applications; applications for telecommunications masts and wind turbines.
