Public meeting to discuss Boyne Valley planning issues

Further change of venue: The meeting will now take place on Tuesday 23rd in The Black and White Thatched Inn in Rossin (also known as Dolly Mitchell's).

Update: The venue for the meeting has been changed to the Bru na Boinne Interpretive Centre at 8pm. This is a much larger space and has ample car parking.

A public meeting on planning issues in the Newgrange and surrounding areas will take place on Tuesday night next, organised by the Boyne Valley Consultative Committee.

A spokesperson for the committee says: 'After 20 years of unfair planning refusals and restrictions in the areas adjacent to the Newgrange World Heritage Site, the Boyne Valley Consultative Committee are delighted to have made significant ground with representatives of State bodies opening communication channels to discuss the current draft Brú na Bóinne Management Plan and its potential impact on the communities surrounding the site.'

Since its recognition as a WHS in 1993, residents and community groups in the area have come up against significant planning issues, with the monument cited as a principle cause for refusals. Restrictions on development are not limited to the Core and Buffer zones (areas immediately adjacent to the sites). Many development applications in areas within the “view-sheds” of the WHS, some of which are several miles away, have also been refused on the same grounds. These decisions have referenced provisions in the existing Management Plan which expired in 2007 but is still referenced in the County Development Plans.

The public meeting will be held at 8pm at The Black and White Thatched Inn (aka Dolly Mitchels), Rossin.

The purpose of this meeting is to provide a forum for all residents and local groups to explore issues and reservations related to this draft plan which the BVCC can then bring these to the attention of the State parties in the next critical phase of the consultation process.

Background

The BVCC represents the communities living in and around the World Heritage Site at Brú na Bóinne in the public consultation process which forms part of the process of formulating a new management Plan for the World Heritage Site and its surrounding area.

The area around the WHS has been assigned two different designations. The immediate area adjacent to the WHS is designated as the Core zone and it comprises some 780 hectares of land. The Core is then surrounded by the Buffer zone – a further 2,500 hectares of land comprising lands in Donore, Tullyallen, Monasterboice, Slane, Newgrange, Knowth & Dowth.

UNESCO granted Brú na Bóinne special status as a World Heritage Site (WHS) in 1993. In 2002 the Department of Arts Heritage and the Gealtacht, who are responsible for managing the WHS, put a comprehensive plan in place to deal with the protection of the site for the future. This plan contained policies on various matters related to the management of the WHS and laid out restrictions on planning and development in the area adjacent to the sites. It also dealt with agriculture, access control and academic research. WHS status requires a management plan to be in place. Louth and Meath County Councils have adopted this plan into their respective County Development Plans.

The BVCC says it has successfully resisted the attempts of the Department to impose a 10-year plan which did not allow for the community’s right to grow and develop, both socially and economically.

' As a result of this work, the latest draft Plan is a significant improvement on the previous drafts. However, the issue of planning and development has not yet been adequately addressed,' they add.

In December 2015, Slane based TD, Helen McEntee, arranged a meeting between the Heather Humphries TD, Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gealtacht, the BVCC and representatives of Slane GFC. This was the first time the community was facilitated with a high level meeting of this sort. The concerns of the community were discussed in some detail and as a consequence of the representations made on that day, a further meeting involving the BVCC, the chief executives of Louth and Meath County Councils and the Assistant General Secretary of the Department took place on 28th January last.

According to BVCC,  the State parties acknowledged the concerns of the community about the new plan and promised a new approach on the issues, one which will seek to accommodate the community’s concerns and, critically, one which will provide for a new approach, by both the Department and the County Councils, to planning and development in the wider area around Brú na Boinne.

For further information about this meeting, contact Gareth Kyne, chair of the BVCC on 086 283 7569 or grkyne@eircom.net.