Planning/public notices in Electoral Areas?

muffler

Brief background: About 8 - 10 years ago Donegal Co. Council embarked on a programme of providing a one stop shop/public services centre in each of the Electoral Areas within the county. The headquarters in Lifford remained as the "service centre" for one EA but they built 5 new buildings around the county to cater for the 5 other EA's.

2 part question now: 1st part is the easy one - how does your local council operate with regards to the different EA's? Is it the same as Donegal?

Second question which is slightly more complicated: The public notices (paper & site) have to contain the name & address of the public service centre where the application may be inspected blah blah. So depending on which EA the site is located it could be any one of 6 different public service centres which must be included in the public notices. Again how does this compare to other counties?


The planning regs dont contain any mention of individual Council centres/offices but merely state that the notice should contain

(e) that the planning application may be inspected or
purchased at the offices of the planning authority
and a submission or observation in relation to the
application may be made to the authority in writing
on payment of the prescribed fee within the period
of 5 weeks beginning on the date of receipt by the
authority of the application.

The problem is that if you specify the wrong public service centre then the application will be invalidated. How does this equate to your county or what opinions do you have on it?

sydthebeat

first question:

My local LA's Laois, Offaly and Kilkenny all have one county building which houses the planning office, thus one address on the public notice. There are area offices in each EA but these provide no public service function besides most basic..... ie maybe some have a fee paying service, some have info desk...others have nothing.

second question:

ALL planning office i know accept this exact wording "that the planning application may be inspected or purchased at the offices of the planning authority and a submission or observation in relation to the application may be made to the authority in writing on payment of the prescribed fee within the period of 5 weeks beginning on the date of receipt by the
authority of the application"
If an agent wants to go to the rounds of stating the exact address of the LA on the newspaper, s be it, but its not deemed necessary..... and in my opinion if one sticks as humanly close to what the wording of the regs are, the less likely hood of a mini-hitler type invalidation....



but in conclusion i must admit im not surprised to hear donegal LA seem to do things differently up there..... next thing it will be Saorstat Dun na ngall....

muffler

sydthebeat wrote: »

There are area offices in each EA but these provide no public service function besides most basic..... ie maybe some have a fee paying service, some have info desk...others have nothing

The offices in each of the EAs here provide the full range of services. They have their own planners, road engineers etc for that specific EA

sydthebeat wrote: »

If an agent wants to go to the rounds of stating the exact address of the LA on the newspaper, s be it, but its not deemed necessary..... and in my opinion if one sticks as humanly close to what the wording of the regs are, the less likely hood of a mini-hitler type invalidation....

This is the problem. We dont have a choice. We must specify which EA office where the application can be in inspected etc. If I had the money and on the verge of retirement I would test them in court I can tell you. I think its completely illegal but their argument is that the hard copy of the file is kept in a specific area office and if you go to a different office in another EA (even the HQ) then you can only view the application - you cant purchase copies of the docs.

sydthebeat wrote: »

but in conclusion i must admit im not surprised to hear donegal LA seem to do things differently up there..... next thing it will be Saorstat Dun na ngall....

No6

In Mayo we have several area offices all of which hold drop in pre-planning meetings on wednsday mornings which are great as you can usually get to meet the planner you want each week. All the applications go to the county buildings in castlebar and that is where the planning office is located and that is the address on the notices. They have computers in most of the area offices so you can inspect the files online in each area office if you want to. I'd love to appeal the situation in donegal as it sound like it is worng, however has anybody noticed there is no appeal mechanism or any way to chalnge invalidations!!