Westmeath County Council has defended its unusual decision to sponsor plans for a major shopping centre in Mullingar - exempting it from the normal planning process - on the basis that it wanted to retain "control over the process".
Rickaton Ltd, a subsidiary of Mullingar-based Bennett Construction, was not required to lodge a planning application for the proposed development at Blackhall in the town centre which would provide 18,281sq m of retail space.
Instead it was steered through the system under Part X of the 2000 Planning Act which normally applies to local authority projects.
The proposal is now before An Bord Pleanála, and the appeals board is due to make a decision by June 18th.
Deerland Construction Ltd, which owns the Harbour Place shopping centre in Mullingar, has claimed that the legislation was never intended to enable a local authority to secure permission for a commercial development on behalf of a private developer.
Deerland's lawyer Rory O'Donnell, of solicitors O'Donnell Sweeney, said it was "unprecedented for a local authority to seek to rely on Part X in order to promote commercial retail development", thereby exempting the developer from having to make a planning application.
Mr O'Donnell called on An Bord Pleanála to examine why Westmeath County Council had "abdicated its normal role" of critically analysing, assessing and adjudicating on the proposed development by Rickaton Ltd and instead became "its unquestioning champion".
He said the use of Part X "may be appropriate where a private developer is to carry out development on behalf of the local authority. It can never be appropriate where the parties' roles are reversed, ie where the local authority is acting on behalf of the developer."
He said the appeals board was under an obligation to subject the entirety of this proposal to heightened scrutiny.
"We also submit that the board is required to inquire into the nature of the relationship between Bennett Construction Ltd . . . and the local authority."
George Lambden, Westmeath County Council's director of services for the Mullingar area, agreed that the use of Part X was unusual.
However he said the scheme complied with a framework plan for the Blackhall site drawn up by the council's planners in 2003.
"The vision was to create a new urban quarter for the centre of the town, to get development in there rather than on the outskirts," he told The Irish Times yesterday.
Much of the site is currently in use as a car park and has been in the council's ownership.
Mr Lambden said in 2004 interested parties were invited to submit proposals consistent with the framework plan in "an open competition which any developer could have entered". The council felt that Rickaton's proposals were acceptable.
Asked why Part X had been used, he said: "We wanted to have a large control over the process because we were conscious of the need to create a public realm of open streets on the site."
The Blackhall site is behind the county buildings on Tullamore Road. Deerland's existing Harbour Place shopping centre is adjacent to Cusack Park GAA grounds.
