Council rezones flood plain for housing

Meath county councillors have voted in favour of rezoning 22 acres of a flood plain near Bettystown.

The vote to designate the 22 acres for housing along with an additional eight acres for community use came after hours of debate among councillors and planners yesterday.

The move to rezone the site of about 30 acres was itself a compromise after initial proposals to rezone 53 acres - five of them for community use - met strong opposition.

The meeting heard the owner of the land involved, Lorcan Grennan, was prepared to hand over five acres to local football club Donacarney Celtic in return for rezoning all the rest of the land.

However, councillor Pat Boshell (FF) told the meeting that he did not accept advice from planners that the land was subject to flooding.

"That is the poorest, pathetic excuse I have ever heard for land not being rezoned . . . The man is going to build the houses himself. He is not one of the big boys. It might be better, easier if he was," said Mr Boshell.

However, Joe Reilly (SF) said: "Facilities don't come for nothing from developers. I recognise what the East Meath councillors are trying to do, but the price is too high. The issue is that building on a flood plain is not good planning."

Council officials agreed with those opposed to the rezoning and referred members to an Office of Public Works report which they said had provided details of flooding patterns in the area.

Ultimately councillors in favour of the proposal said they would accept the compromise subject to further discussion on the remainder of the site.

The councillors also voted to rezone almost 25 acres of land at Donacarney for mixed private and social housing which will include five acres of sports facilities.

The land owners were house builders Shannon Homes and local man Vincent Blake.

However, an earlier proposal to rezone 17 acres of land south of Drogheda was defeated in a vote. Councillors were told the land, owned by Chris Kirwin and Joe Kirwin, was surplus to Drogheda's housing needs.