Madam, – I read in your Commercial Property section (July 14th) that Fingal County Council had given the go-ahead for the development of 3,400 homes in a new neighbourhood planned for 270 acres between Swords and Ashbourne, to be built by Gannon Developments.
The very next day you report that the Government has just passed a Bill which will reduce 40,000 hectares of land zoned for residential development across the country, to 12,000 hectares over the next six years (Home News, July 15th). The Minister of State for Planning Ciarán Cuffe is quoted as saying that over-zoning and bad planning had played a large role in creating the so-called property bubble, adding: “This legislation aims to ensure that these practices become a thing of the past.”
Why then is Fingal County Council working in the opposite direction by making even more land available for development? North Dublin – like many other parts of the country – is already over-populated with thousands of unsold or unfinished housing units, many of them built by Gannon Developments or other associated companies.
Are Fingal Council and Mr Gannon operating in a different universe to the rest of us? – Yours, etc,