Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein)
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974. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government if he is aware of the increasing number of applicants who are having their applications for planning permission refused by planning authorities due to the fact that the sites in question are located within close proximity to a particular national secondary road (details supplied) in County Donegal; his views on the implications which these decisions are having on the local population; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [20720/15]

Paudie Coffey (Waterford, Fine Gael)
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My Department’s Guidelines for Planning Authorities on Spatial Planning and National Roads(2012) are aimed at ensuring that roads planning and policy, and development planning and management processes, are appropriately and effectively aligned; and encouraging a collaborative approach and early engagement between planning authorities and the National Roads Authority (NRA) so that transport and land use planning considerations are taken into account at the early stages of both development plan and development management processes. This is to ensure that future development at locations on, or in the vicinity of, national roads is guided to the most suitable location and that work on Ireland’s national roads network is planned for and managed in a complementary and integrated manner.

Section 2.6 of the Guidelines outlines that, in exceptional circumstances with regard to the normal limitations on the provision of access for new developments to national routes, planning authorities may identify stretches of national roads where a less restrictive approach may be applied, but only as part of the process of reviewing or varying the relevant development plan and having consulted and had regard to the advice of the NRA in line with the approach set out in the Guidelines.

It is a matter for Donegal County Council to consider the implementation of Section 2.6 of the Guidelines in respect of sections of relevant national roads and in the context of its statutory development plan.