Donegal Development Plan

water-man

I see in the papers that the County Development Plan is up for review.

I see this as a good opportunity for the people of Donegal to have a say in how our county should develop over the next couple of years. If we say and do nothing in my opinion we have nothing to complain about.

I'm starting this thread to gather ideas on strengths in our county that can be developed. A few things that come to mind are:

• Renewable Energy - Wind/Wave/Wood
• Tourism

Does anyone have any suggestions to be included in a submission?

ednwireland

honestly the last thing the county needs is more destruction of its natural beauty by concreting hillsides and sticking up wind turbines. talked to plenty of tourists wondering why the hills are been covered in wind turbines

broadband would be good

public transport

Pique

I'm all for wind turbines. I find them beautiful. Especially on the approach to Ballyshannon where they're right beside the road.

What I want no sign of however is fracking.

Remove a wind turbine and there's a bit of a concrete base left that the grass and weeds will grow through in a matter of years.

Remove a fracking operation and you'll be lucky to not get seismic tremors, massive poisonous pollution of waterways and even flammable gas coming out the kitchen taps.

Also, after fracking has finished and packed up and the fuel is gone, what will we be back to? Yup, wind power.

ednwireland

30 to 50 feet across and 6 to 30 ft deep not exactly a bit of concrete plus theres the access roads 30km on the new one at legoney.

Although I do totally agree with you on fracking.

water-man

I'm thinking of submitting something about:

Developing Killybegs harbor to allow repair/manufacture of wave energy machines.

Northern Ireland has a thriving rock crushing and screening industry could Donegal be placed to supply design/manufacture/service to this industry?

Tourism - where are the strengths in the county? Wild Atlantic Way can it be improved? Where & Why

More jobs - where are our strengths? Forestry? Food producing? Wind (appreciate they are not to everyone's liking) What needs to be done to grow these

Multinationals - while they are great to have I don't believe we should be reliant on them. Local companies need more support

Any items to add to the list?

Pixel Eater

It's hard to argue against turbine when the county has been pockmarked with unsightly bungalows. The development plan should look at proper planning that helps our small rural settlements rather than scattering the population over the countryside.

muffler

The twin towns bypass should be included as a priority in the next devp plan together with proposals for upgrading the likes of the N14 (Letterkenny - Lifford) and other strategic road networks.

Likewise the much heralded and long overdue rural broadband scheme should be a front runner.

Its all well and good proposing inward investment and developing (commercial & residential) larger urban areas right down to rural clusters but the infrastructure must be in place in the first instance. To attract industry (both commercial and tourism related) the county has to keep up with the ever changing demands.

Firblog

water-man wrote: »

I'm thinking of submitting something about:

Tourism - where are the strengths in the county? Wild Atlantic Way can it be improved? Where & Why

Any items to add to the list?

1. Tell the council to help people who want to create facilities for tourists following the WAW, not block them at every turn; know an instance where person wanted planning permission to have campervan / caravan park, but was refused because it would attract too much traffic... :eek:

Pixel Eater

muffler wrote: »

Its all well and good proposing inward investment and developing (commercial & residential) larger urban areas right down to rural clusters but the infrastructure must be in place in the first instance. To attract industry (both commercial and tourism related) the county has to keep up with the ever changing demands.

A lot of the towns and villages have some infrastructure already but also have a lot of dereliction and vacant sites within them. Building them up and increasing their populations would make them a much more attractive in tempting industry and commerce.

overshoot

Pixel Eater wrote: »

It's hard to argue against turbine when the county has been pockmarked with unsightly bungalows. The development plan should look at proper planning that helps our small rural settlements rather than scattering the population over the countryside.

there is this to a degree, rural areas have three designations, (taking the more laymans terms) weaker, stronger and area under urban influence.
the weaker area allows for "urban and rural" generated housing. For the other 2 you must demonstrate ties to the area.
its very hard to overcome "its my land".
Planning map shows the zoning - you will have to switch on 'rural area types'. Take the development plan core document and search "Rh-P-" will bring you to the relevant policies. 3,4 & 5 describe the housing types.