Sir, – I certainly agree with Mary Freehill (Letters, December 5th) that steps need to be taken to increase the powers of local authorities in Ireland.
At a recent presentation of the Wicklow County Development Plan I was shocked to discover how little control the council had over developments in the county.
For example, there is no local parks department so that the provision of new public open spaces is in the hands of the developers, who may provide some lifeless, grassy plots in the midst of their near-gardenless estates.
If there really is a climate emergency then there is little county councils can do about it.
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It seems to me that if control of planning and development was controlled by local people then more thought would be given to developing sustainable, integrated public transport, schools, parks and other services instead of the developer-controlled chaos that we now have. – Yours, etc,
IGOR CUSACK,
Greystones,
Co Wicklow.