Waterford County Council has defended itself against critics of its development in the historic seaside village of Ardmore. It said land on the hill overlooking its 12th century round tower has been zoned for housing since 1992.
Mr Jim Mansfield, senior executive planner in charge of development control, said: "Uncontrolled development in the absence of a sewage treatment plant is not on." He admitted, though, that no funding has yet been allocated for such a plant. At present, all of Ardmore's sewage is discharged untreated into the sea.
Whether the village gets a sewage treatment plant depends on the success of the council's application for funding from the Department of the Environment.
It was first promised to Ardmore in 1994 by Mr John Browne, then minister of state for the environment. Similar pledges were made in 1995 by Mr Brendan Howlin, in 1998 by Mr Noel Dempsey and again last year by the county manager, Mr Donal Connolly. Mr Connolly told a public meeting in the village in May 2001 that only limited development would be permitted in the area until the treatment plant was built. Ardmore is still waiting, yet there has been no halt to the tide of new housing.
The council is considering an application by Hollycourt Developments Ltd, controlled by Mr Tom Collier, for 28 more houses on the elevated site above the round tower, adjoining the controversial housing scheme now under construction there. This scheme was approved by the council and by An Bord Pleanála despite a statement in the county plan that landscape features such as skyline ridges "have an extremely low potential to absorb new development without causing disproportionate visual impacts".
But Mr Mansfield said that, in Ardmore, this policy had been "over-ridden by zoning considerations". He said there was nothing wrong with "building up and over hills", citing nearby Youghal, in Co Cork, as a good example.
Referring to Mr Collier's own burgundy-coloured house, which stands right above the cliff overlooking the bay, he suggested it would be less visually prominent when it was joined by five other one-off houses for which permission has already been granted.
He also revealed that the owners of the Cliff Hotel, Mr John Foley and his wife Margaret, are seeking to build up to 40 apartments on an adjacent site which was rezoned in June by Co Waterford's elected councillors despite receiving more than 680 objections.
Permission had been refused by An Bord Pleanála two years ago for 12 apartments on the "visually vulnerable" site, which the board judged was located outside Ardmore's development boundary - due to what the council called a "printing error" on the map.
The county engineer, Mr John O'Flynn, had warned of "possible destabilisation of cliff and rockface" and said the narrow Cliff Road was incapable of taking large traffic loads to facilitate the "incongruous . . . Mediterranean-type" development then being planned.
The material contravention of the county plan voted through in June restricted development to the area immediately adjoining the hotel, with the rest designated as open space, primarily to protect the approach to St Declan's Well, a place of religious pilgrimage.
According to the county manager, this was meant to "allay any fears" that the council would permit "uncontrolled and indiscriminate development". Indeed, Mr Mansfield said further housing might be refused on the grounds of prematurity. "We were certainly not going to allow housing to be built beside St Declan's Well - we are not that barbaric," he said, in reference to a comment by the BBC journalist, Mr Fergal Keane, that what was happening in Ardmore was "barbarism".
The 1999 county plan states that "ideally, development should be channelled" into a number of derelict or vacant sites "before any of the greenfield sites that are zoned for development in the town are taken up". However, under the same plan, Mr Mansfield said a further "two or three fields" adjoining the Hollycourt scheme, which is being marketed as "The Heritage", were also rezoned in preference to low-lying farmland immediately adjoining the village.
He said policy was to direct development into existing centres, such as Ardmore, Cappoquin, Dungarvan and Dunmore East, despite "significant political pressure from elected representatives for more zoning everywhere in Co Waterford".
