Minister says funds available for development of rural ‘nodes’

The Minister of State with responsibility for Local Government and Planning, Peter Burke, has told Meath County Council that there are funds available for the development of rural nodes in the county.

The county council was told last month that no funds had been received any funding from the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage for the development of 50 rural nodes throughout the county. The issue had been raised at a council meeting by Fianna Fail Cllr Damien O’Reilly.

Rural nodes comprise a defined network of small, generally unserviced settlements in the county which provide an alternative to one-off housing in the open countryside. They were formerly known as graigs but this has been changed to nodes in the newest county development plan.

Officials had told the councillors: “Whilst there is a Government fund called the ‘Serviced Sites Fund’, this fund seeks to enable the delivery of affordable housing in urban areas and does not relate to the provision of infrastructure on sites in the rural area. The Serviced Sites Fund has been replaced recently by the Affordable Housing Fund which is for settlements with a population greater than 1,500 people,” they said.

The officials also stated that national policy noted that the Government intends developing a programme for new homes in small towns and villages, with local authorities, public infrastructure agencies such as Irish Water and local communities to provide serviced sites with appropriate infrastructure to attract people to build their own homes and live in small towns and villages.

Mr Burke has now written to the council saying that a funding stream for infrastructure was available through the Rural Regeneration and Development Fund (administered by the Department of Rural and Community Development). He said that a fourth call for Category One applications had closed on 29th April this year.