The Save Roscam Peninsula campaign today welcomed the direction by the Minister for State for Local Government and Planning reversing 25 material alternations made by the Galway City Councillors as part of the adoption of the Galway City Development Plan 2023 – 2029.

Following the recommendation of the Office of the Planning Regulator(OPR), the Direction lists 14 land parcels which were the subject of land use zoning changes as part of the Material Alterations to the Draft Galway City Development Plan. The OPR recommended to the Minister to direct the Galway City Council in each case to reverse the zoning. The Direction lists a further 11 land parcels where the OPR recommended to the Minister to direct the city Council to delete the land use zoning for each land parcel and that the subject land become unzoned.

The Minister found that the Development Plan had not been made in a manner consistent with the earlier recommendations of the OPR, which required specific changes to the Development Plan to ensure; consistency with the National Planning Framework (NPF), the core strategy of the adopted Development Plan, and the Development Plans Guidelines.

Specifically, the Minister called out material amendments to the Draft Development Plan adopted by the elected members to zone land for development in peripheral locations, leapfrogging unzoned and/or undeveloped land, and in so doing not applying the sequential approach to development to support compact growth of the city environs and not consistent with the objectives to promote sustainable settlement and transportation strategies.

The effect of the Direction will see the Roscam Village area on the Roscam Peninsula unzoned and will also see a number of land parcels revert back to Agriculture/High Amenity.

The unzoned lands included those on a scenic environmentally sensitive headline which were zoned for development in the previous development plan .

Responding to the Minsters direction, a spokesperson for the campaign said “the material alterations made by the City Councillors following lobbying by developers continued the long standing practice of councillors facilitating a developer led plan rather than an evidence and policy based plan that meets the needs of the City.”

“The decades long practice of city councillors facilitating developers is over and the Ministers direction is an important step in restoring confidence in the planning system.

“It is clear from the City Council’s own evidence on future housing projections that there was no requirement to zone these lands for residential purposes in order to meet the needs of the targeted population increase up to 2029.”