Far from a fast-track town
A better train service and more secondary school places top the wish-list of Gorey's newest residents, reports Kathy Sheridan
| |
 |
|
An overdeveloped vision
Wexford County Council's plan for Gorey is riddled with contradictions, writes Frank McDonald, Environment Editor
Gorey was planned as a market town and remains the best example in Co Wexford of a 17th-century plantation town. But not for much longer, or so it would appear from the local area plan adopted last year by Wexford County Council.
Although the towns of Enniscorthy, New Ross and Wexford all registered marginal falls in population in the 2002 Census, the number of people living in Gorey soared by nearly 44 per cent since 1996. Even its rural hinterland showed a population increase of almost 20 per cent in the same period.
The local area plan concedes at least 40 per cent "and possibly even as much as 70 per cent" of Gorey's new residents commute to Dublin on a daily basis, mostly by car. What made the north Wexford town more accessible to this influx of commuters was the opening of the Arklow bypass.
It also admits that new housing in Gorey has "tended to be relatively standardised in terms of layout, design and density", with three-bedroom houses as the norm, to cater for "the demand for starter homes from newlyweds who have been pushed out of the Dublin region property market".
Development pressures are expected to increase following completion of Gorey's own bypass, on which work is under way. Indeed, the local area plan anticipates that the population of the town and its environs will double to 11,000 by 2007, turning Gorey into the largest urban area in Co Wexford. "It will be important as the town grows and develops that it does not become dependent on the employment centres around Dublin, developing into a satellite or dormitory town, and that a sustainable balance between employment and residential activity is achieved," according to the plan.
But this cannot be reconciled with the enormous volume of land zoned for housing and the dubious viability of land zoned for employment-generating activities. Incredibly, the planned upgrading of Gorey's deficient sewerage plant to cater for a population of 11,000 "assumes no growth in industrial activity".
At present, the town has only a single small industrial estate and a number of even smaller manufacturing enterprises; otherwise, jobs in Gorey are in the service sector, including seasonal tourism. Although some land has been zoned for "a business and technology park", this may be purely notional.
As a result, there is almost no chance that the plan's "vision" of developing Gorey as "a self-sufficient centre capable of social and economic interaction with the Dublin region" will be realised. Instead, its role as a "dormitory or satellite settlement" is likely to be reinforced - whatever the written statement says.
Until the local councillors got their hands on a draft of the latest plan, prepared by the National Building Agency, Gorey already had sufficient land available for housing within its development boundary. Zoned residential land amounted to 136 acres, with a further 99 acres available for long-term development.
Planning permissions already granted would have been enough to provide for an increase of 3,440 in the town's population, bringing it to 7,380. But that would have fallen short of the county council's "pro-active view toward development" in Gorey, so the local area plan aimed for a "design population" of 11,000.
That, at least, is what its written statement says. In fact, so much land was subsequently rezoned for housing that, if all of it was developed, the town would end up with at least 6,000 new homes or maybe as many as 10,000, if built at higher densities. And that would give it a population of between 17,600 and 28,900.
With no less than 744 acres of land around Gorey zoned for housing, much of it against planning advice, the plan limply declares: "While it would appear that there are excess provisions made in terms of zoning allocations, there needs to be adequate lands available to provide an element of choice in the market."
In other words, the market rules. Given the plethora of zoned land, way in excess of what would be required to cater for the 11,000 "design population", developers can pick and choose what sites to build on. So much for the plan's aspiration to consolidate Gorey and achieve a "balanced growth pattern around the town in all directions".
Yet both the elected representatives and officials of Wexford County Council should have been well aware of the hazards of haphazard development. Under the Seaside Resort Renewal Scheme, at least 1,200 holiday homes were shovelled into nearby Courtown and environs before a sewerage plant had even been built.
Although a significant portion of the town's development has been happening outside its official boundary, the plan says it is the county council's policy to adopt a "clear boundary to development" to ensure that Gorey grows in a planned fashion and lay down a "clear demarcation line" to prevent it merging with Courtown. How then can it explain or justify a decision to rezone a parcel of 47 acres of land at Raheenagurren, on the Courtown road, outside this elastic development boundary, for "commercial and mixed land uses"? Or the decision to extend the boundary northwards to incorporate another parcel of land at Ballyloughan on the N11?
Some 35 of the 47 acres at Raheenagurren is owned by the elderly mother of Cllr Lorcan Allen, a minister of state during the Haughey era. He chaired the council's four-member Gorey district committee which decided to rezone it, but absented himself when the decision was taken and insisted there was "no stroke-pulling" involved.
The other members of the committee were Michael D'Arcy TD (FG), Deirdre Bolger (FG) and Joe Murphy (FF). They would have been well aware that the Allen land was close to an interchange on the future Gorey bypass, and it was a specific objective of the area plan that sites along the bypass be reserved for strategic development.
The decision caused outrage locally as it was made without any public consultation. Neither the lands at Raheenagurren nor Ballyloughan had been proposed for zoning when the draft plan was put on public exhibition in late 2001. They were simply added to the plan and ratified by the full council without going back on public display.
"It's crazy that something like this, which has such a long-term impact for the town, can take place without people knowing," says Malcolm Byrne, a Fianna Fáil member of Gorey Town Council. What worries the local chamber of commerce is that the Raheenagurren site could now be developed for a major out-of-town shopping centre.
Only public outrage prevented the councillors rezoning an 11-acre site used as playing fields, which the Land Commission had given to the people of Gorey in 1937. Both Allen and D'Arcy had supported this controversial move, denying there was any conflict of interest between their roles as councillors and trustees for the site.
Cllr Bolger had earlier declared an interest when the committee decided to rezone land at Ramstown, on the south side of Gorey, in response to a submission from her husband's firm, J. Bolger and Company. However, the minutes do not record that she left the meeting when this decision was taken by her colleagues.
The massive over-zoning in the plan is grist to the mill of landowners and developers. Agricultural land in the Gorey area sells for about €10,000 an acre, but could be worth up to €125,000 an acre with rezoning for commercial or residential use. Little wonder then that a lot of land has been changing hands in recent times.
Meanwhile, as the plan itself says, Gorey Community School is "experiencing severe overcrowding problems and will have little spare capacity over the plan period". And though there are plans to expand the Loreto Abbey and CBS, an additional primary school will be needed in Gorey to cater for its explosive population growth.
Additional reporting by Chris Dooley
| 
