Donegal councillor calls for planning report to be withdrawn
There are calls today for An Taisce to withdraw its highly critical report on local planning practices around Ireland, after the heritage body admitted it was flawed.
The report was based on eight aggregated scores for each county but the final published rankings were in fact based on figures from seven and not eight indicators.
"It has come to our attention that there is an error in the matrix used to calculate the score and ranking for individual councils," an An Taisce statement read. "We apologise for this."
"This results in a move of between one and three places generally in the ranking for individual councils, with the exception of Co Mayo, which improves by several places.
"In our original calculations, we felt that Indicator 1 (Overzoning) gave unfair advantage to City Councils, because as cities are mostly zoned, it is significantly more difficult to overzone a city. So we only counted the other 7 indicators. Unfortunately in finalising the report we omitted to explain this.
"We are working right now on a new Appendix and revising the report accordingly, which will show the original scores, counting indicators 2 to 8 and the revised scores counting all 8. We will also regrade the authorities accordingly.
"Whereas individual authorities may improve in their grading, it does not effect the overall messages of the report that there is a strong correlation between councils that have scored poorly and a range of negative socio-economic and environmental outcomes.
"The system still needs radical overhaul and the provision of an Independent Planning Regulator."
In the report, Donegal ranked as having the worst planning system in the country.
Local Councillor Dessie Larkin told Highland Radio he wants the report withdrawn and an apology issued to the county.
"I've always said that it was a distorted representation of the facts surrounding the planning process and it's obvious that this is also [the case] nationally," he said.
"I would ask them to withdraw the report, but I would also ask them to withdraw the comments that they made after that report."
