THERE is an urgent need for clear Government policy on population balance across the State and a diffusion of industrial development, according to the Western Development Partnership Board (WDPB).
It warned yesterday that the unplanned explosion of the greater Dublin region was leaving the country with a sorry social legacy".
The WDPB established by the Government in October, 1994, with a mandate to draw up an action plan for the western region counties said the controversy in Kilcock, Co Kildare, over plans for a substantial residential and industrial expansion of the town highlighted the problem.
It stressed that the development pressure on Kilcock, and the similar pressure on the Co Wicklow village of Delgany, were only the latest symptoms of the unplanned explosion of the greater Dublin Region.
The Concerned Residents of Kilcock group are strongly resisting plans to rezone more than 650 acres of land in the area. Today, they will carry out a referendum on the matter in a bid to prove that the people of the area are totally against the rezoning.
The residents claim the rezoning would increase the population from just under 2,000 to over 8,000. The plan would rezone 200 acres for housing and a further 450 acres for amenity and industry. Residents say there are no plans for additional schools or amenities.
Some of the local councillors believe that the town is badly in need of further development, however, and stress that the proposed expansion would be carried out on a phased basis.
The Kilcock residents now have a welcome but unexpected ally in the WDPB. The WDPB said that in the last year, of .57 major IDA supported major projects, only eight were located in the seven western counties from Donegal to Clare, and six of those went to Galway.
Meanwhile, it pointed out that the quality of life of the people of Kilcock and many other dormitory towns of Dublin was being seriously threatened. People living in the Dublin region were forced to endure greater traffic congestion, increasing crime and vandalism and a general deterioration in the quality of life.
The economic suction effect of uncontrolled expansion of the Dublin region is undermining the viability of communities through out the rest of Ireland, particularly in the West of Ireland."
It was for this reason, the WDPB added, that it had put forward an action plan for a clear Government policy on population balance within the State.