The Clare Champion Clare news, sport, entertainment and local notes
CLARE is faced with “a premeditated depopulation of the countryside” unless pressure is put on organisations including Irish Water to provide essential services, according to a member of the local authority. Councillor Cillian Murphy made his remarks at the January meeting of Clare County Council after warning that tracts of land are at risk of being de-zoned under a new National Planning Framework (NPF), if services are not provided within the next seven years. The Fianna Fáil member tabled a series of detailed questions about the forthcoming development plan for Clare which will be in effect up from 2022 to 2028. He noted that the NPF outlines a tiered approach, whereby lands that are unlikely to be serviced within the period of the plan are recommended to be de-zoned for development. He was sharply critical of “a lack of ambition” for rural Ireland on the part of the State, and said organisations like Irish Water, instead of being instructed to …
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