Following last Monday’s meeting of Wicklow County Council at which councillors proposed rezoning an additional 50 acre site that was not included in the Draft Rathdrum Development Plan, Green Party councillor Deirdre de Burca questioned the decision.

The proposal to zone an additional 50 acres of land for “community, educational and institutional purposes” was made by councillors from the Wicklow Local Electoral Committee- Cllr Fachtna Whittle, Cllr Jimmy O’Shaughnessy, Cllr Andrew Doyle, Cllr Conal Kavanagh, and Cllr Pat Casey. The local area councillors made this proposal along with a number of other new rezoning proposals. They stated that they wanted to reserve the 50 acre site for possible future community and educational purposes.

“In all my time on Wicklow County Council I have never opposed land being zoned for community and educational purposes” says Councillor de Burca. “In fact it is often very difficult to get an acceptable amount of land zoned for educational and community purposes in any Local Development Plan. However, this last minute rezoning proposal by councillors for a 50 acre site outside Rathdrum needs to be questioned very closely. In my opinion, the purpose of the exercise is just to get the land zoned, and I believe there is every possibility that the zoning will be changed in the future to include residential and/or commercial”.

Cllr de Burca points out that the 2006-2012 Draft Rathdrum Development Plan already included sufficient community and educational zoning for the next five year period. “The 2002 Census stated that the population of Rathdrum between the town and the surrounding rural area was 2,123 people” she says. “The target population for 2016 is 4,500 people. It is just not credible to argue that the town will need a 50 acre site reserved for educational and institutional purposes in the short to medium-term. There is certainly a need for a new primary school in the medium term and an additional secondary school in the longer-term. But 50 acres is a lot of land - enough land on which to build a new town!”

The Green Party councillor proposed to her fellow councillors that the rezoning might be premature and asked that they consider revisiting the issue in a few years time when the population trend in the town would be clearer. However a majority of councillors voted to support the rezoning proposal which will now go back out on public display. The Green Party councillor is encouraging residents from the Rathdrum area to go and look at the Draft Plan which will be on display in Wicklow County Buildings. “It is now up to local residents to decided whether they feel this rezoning is appropriate for their town or not” she says.