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Chapter 1: What changes are proposed for rural housing regulations?
First, though, plans to ease rules around rural housing are to be brought to Cabinet in a matter of weeks. Restrictions on one-off homes in ribbon developments along main roads and on new homes behind existing houses look set to be relaxed. At the moment, rural housing policy varies from county to county.
For more on these changes, I'm joined by Peter Chap-Clear, Fianna Fáil TD for Carlo Kilkenny, and by Uisín Coughlan, Policy Advisor to the Environmental Pillar. Good morning to you both. You're very welcome. Peter, if I might start with you. What exactly are these changes? This is something I think rural backbenchers have been looking for for some time.
Yeah, I suppose. Good morning, David, and good morning to your listeners. And currently, the guidance that are in place are far too restrictive. We're coming across multiples of cases in our clinics every single week where people can't build on their own land.
The old guidelines that were there are 21 years old now so they need to be updated and they need to be upgraded and Minister Brown has put huge work in over the last number of months and really wants to liberalise planning in rural areas so that if you're from a rural area, if you're from a local area that you'll be able to build and live in your community because
Chapter 2: How do current rural housing policies vary across counties?
David, ultimately rural communities, they need people if they're to survive and if they're to thrive into the future. And if we want vibrant rural communities, then we have to make it possible for people to live there.
But you will still need to have a local link.
Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. And there's absolutely no questioning that. But we're seeing a situation now where people that have local links are still struggling to get planning. There's huge inconsistencies from one local authority to the next. There's potential improvements that could be made regarding backland development. I mean, I think that's... I'm not fully connected...
That's something that needs to be looked at and again could add additional thousands of homes every year.
There's huge challenges in terms of access onto the national regional roads so there are a lot of challenges out there in the existing planning guidelines and my view is need to be updated simply for the reason David if you're from a rural area you should be able to live and have your family and grow your family in that rural area.
OK, but we have seen in the past instances of bad planning of houses being put places that they shouldn't be.
Yeah, and the key thing here is nobody is suggesting a free-for-all here, David. But if someone has roots in an area and if they want to raise their family there, the planning system should be helping them, not standing in their way. And I'd be very, very strong on that. And I think things like remote working, David, have changed the conversation as well.
I mean, the planning system was largely designed for a different era 20 years ago. But the pandemic showed us that jobs no longer have to be concentrated in our larger cities. So housing policy should reflect this reality and allow more people to live where they want to live in rural Ireland.
OK, and in terms of how this will change, so say, for instance, you want to build on some family land, you'd be able to build there. The council will be instructed not to block people from building. Is that it?
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Chapter 3: What challenges do people face in building on their own land?
And I think that's a very, very sensible policy. It's something that's been coming up very, very strong on the ground and it's something I'm very passionate about as Fianna Fáil spokesperson in Rural Affairs that we get these improvements made over the next number of weeks.
Okay, but there will still be differences from county to county, will there, from different local authorities?
There will, but that's one of the challenges there is the inconsistencies at the moment, the inconsistent decisions that are between counties. So, for example, sometimes, you know, the distance you live can be a greater concern than the quality of the application. So, you know, sometimes the local needs test can be too restrictive and one county's interpretation can be different to another.
So it needs to be updated. It needs to be made more consistent. But all of this is done with a view that if you're from rural Ireland, that you should be able to live and build a house in your community, on your family lands. And that was going to be a massive positive for thousands of your listeners out there this morning.
OK, I think Oisín Coughlin is with us now. Oisín, are you hearing us OK?
Good morning, David.
I can hear you now. I'm not sure how much of Peter's contribution you heard there, but this idea of easing restrictions on people to build one-off rural housing, Peter has outlined the argument for it. What do you make of it?
Well, I completely understand the desire for the government to make it possible for people to get houses and for people who grew up in rural areas or have family ties there to want to be able to live in the communities they grew up in. But I do think we need to realise that loosening the requirements that are there now does have consequences, like there are trade-offs.
And so some of those are around, we end up being further away from where we work, from our shops, from our schools. We may end up being more dependent on cars. And actually, it does, of course, increase the cost to the state and the effort to the taxpayer of providing public services. So school transport buses are more expensive.
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Chapter 4: Why is there a need to update the current rural housing guidelines?
So we have twice as many overhead wires as Scotland does, which is quite a rural country, in Ireland. And of course, that also leaves us vulnerable to, for example, say, Stormy Owen. We were all very struck by how
how many houses were without electricity on the west coast in particular and how long it took well it seemed long for many people before it meant some of them were put back up so i'm sure the esp would say they did as fast as possible but because we have such dispersed population compared to most european countries that just means these things take longer and cost more so those are some of the the trade-offs it also also means we're not uh condensing uh development in our rural towns we often hear about how rural towns some of rural towns are declining
There isn't all the shops aren't open, there isn't people living over the shops. We need, and this is the plan in the National Planning Framework, we need to encourage denser development in rural Ireland around towns and villages to keep those towns vibrant. And the more we let people build in ribbons around the countryside, as we have done in the past, the less possible that is.
So there's real consequences, but I understand the tension in what we want to achieve.
Yeah, but I mean, you could argue, and I think Peter has argued, that the situation has changed because of working from home, that people can work remotely in a lot of these areas. And surely that's a good thing. So instead of clogging up the roads into our cities, they're sitting on their laptop in their kitchen.
They can work remotely, but some of the time, some people, but they still have to get their kids to school if they have kids or go to the shops or go to the local community or whatever. So, you know, people aren't living in splendid isolation. They have to be connected.
And we were seeing, of course, as well, as they get older and become more dependent on services, it is just harder to provide everyone with the services they need. I mean, as well as the climate emissions, there are the sort of more direct services. local environmental pressures that more and more houses in rural Ireland put.
So for example there was a recent EPA report that said six in ten of the septic tanks that they inspected last year had failed the inspection and of course if we're having more and more rural houses dependent on septic tanks as opposed to mains water, then that pressure increases. So it's not the most strategic way to make sure we can provide public services to people into the future.
Okay, I'll bring Peter back in again, Peter Chapclare. That point about Storm Eoin and how exposed our electricity network was is one that will chime with a lot of people, Peter.
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