Planning for the Regions Series/Analysis: Regional planning guidelines won't be worth a penny candle unless local authorities are required to comply with them, writes Frank McDonald, Environment Editor
There can be no doubt that a lot of effort has been invested in the preparation of regional planning guidelines for different parts of the State, to reflect the National Spatial Strategy (NSS). The real question is whether all of this will turn out to be a waste of time.
The omens are not good. For a start, the seven regional authorities have no powers. Since they were established in 1994, their only role has been to promote the co-ordination of public services at a regional level. They are, in effect, paper tigers.
When I rang 11811 to look for a phone number for the South East Regional Authority, one operator put me through to the South Eastern Health Board and then another connected me with the South Eastern Tourism Authority. Neither of them had heard of it.
It is also easy to confuse the South East Regional Authority with the Southern and Eastern Regional Assembly, set up in 1998. The assembly represents the residue of the State after the Border Midland Western (BMW) region was carved out to cash in on EU funds.
Apart from the inherent powerlessness of the regional authorities, there is another reason to be dubious about the implementation of regional planning guidelines - the 2000 Planning Act merely requires local authorities to "have regard to" them.
The effect of this was dramatically highlighted by a High Court judgment in September 2002, under which Meath County Council was found to have paid little or no attention to the Greater Dublin Area Strategic Planning Guidelines in voting to zone more land.
The guidelines envisaged that Meath's population would grow from 109,700 in 1996 to 139,500 in 2006. But the councillors rezoned so much land for residential development that the population could reach 195,000 by 2006 and 242,000 by 2011, far above the targets.
The latest regional planning guidelines are intended to give effect to the NSS, and the local authorities in each region are supposed to revise their own development plans to reflect what's in the guidelines. But they are only required to "have regard to" rather than "comply with" them.
The Government, too, virtually abandoned the NSS when it used the cloak of Budget secrecy to hatch its scatter-gun decentralisation programme. Of the eight departments that are to have their headquarters moved to provincial towns, only one is targeted for a "gateway".
With such a shocking headline set by the Government itself, why should local authorities bother to pay any attention to the NSS or the regional plans? They, too, might as well grab what they can - and there is nothing to stop them, because the latest guidelines remain advisory.
The Minister for the Environment, Mr Cullen, has used his powers to direct Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council to zone more land for residential development.
But he did not lift a finger to stop the massive over-zoning of land for commuter-belt housing in Gorey, Co Wexford.
Each of the regional plans is peppered with references to the need to create "critical mass" in the various NSS-designated gateways and hubs.
But because there are so many of them and everyone knows that Dublin is the only urban area that has real critical mass, this seems almost fatuous.
Balanced regional development will remain a hollow slogan as long as the chaotic sprawl of the the capital is allowed to continue. For despite all the official guff, the Greater Dublin Area's share of the State's population has risen inexorably, from around 25 per cent in the mid-1920s to 39 per cent today.
If Dublin's tentacles reaching into outer Leinster are included, the proportion is already well above 40 per cent.
The only other EU member-state with such a population imbalance is Greece, and it could hardly be regarded as a model of sustainable development.