Dingle Town Plan will mean more holiday homes

A new Town Plan for Dingle, designed to make more houses available and ultimately bring prices down, is angering locals, who say it will add to urban sprawl. By Bert McCann

A controversial town plan for Dingle, which would rezone lands for more housing and extend the town boundary is angering locals. The new plan, which was considered by Kerry County Council (KCC) last week, outlines development in the town for the next six years. Although the council allowed through 67 amendments to the plan, the controversial sections relating to additional land being rezoned for housing and the boundaries of the town being extended remained.

Local residents say they were not consulted about either of these sections of the plan. However, the Council added a provision to maintain the view around the harbour – there had been proposals for a retail development.

Sean Bronson, a native of Dingle, has a shop in the town's Strand Street and is a founder of the Dingle Sustainable Development Group (DSDG). He said: "We are not opposed to some development, but the Dingle Town Plan is quite clearly meant to stimulate even more building – particularly holiday homes – and will have a negative effect on the local tourist and fishing industry."

On 24 April, residents met with local councillors Breandan MacGerailt (Fianna Fáil) and Seamus MacGerailt (Fine Gael) to discuss the plan, and lodged a detailed list of objections with the councillors. At the meeting, Breandan MacGerailt said there was a valid reason behind the extension of the town boundary: "Local people cannot afford to buy new homes. So the more land that is made available for house-building, the more houses will go up and the more likely prices will fall."

However, the DSDG say that no assessment of the housing need and the impact of more development had been carried out and that the plan only added to what was already becoming a suburban sprawl of holiday homes. In 2000, the then county manager of Kerry County Council conceded in the Kerryman newspaper that the county had far more houses than it would ever conceivably need.

The final Dingle Town Plan will be voted on by KCC in June.