‘Non farming rural dwellers an integral part of country life’, insists Boylan

Sinn Féin MLA Cathal Boylan has said that non-farming rural dwellers must have greater opportunities to build a home in their own townland.

Sinn Fein MLA Cathal Boylan

Speaking recently in the Assembly on a motion tabled by Boylan and two of his Sinn Féin colleagues he stated that; “Under the present planning policy PPS 21, there are limited opportunities for a non-farmer living in a rural setting to secure planning permission to build a new home.

“Many of these people belong to families who have lived in the same townlands for generations yet under current regulations are being forced out. Rural communities are made up of people who are directly involved in farming and others who while they don’t have a connection to farming make a valued contribution to sustainable rural communities.

“As it stands, PPS21 does contain some possibilities for farm dwellings and this is positive but what we need is for PPS 21 to repeat that for non-farming rural dwellers.

“Sinn Féin has brought this motion to the Assembly in order to address this deficit in the current regulations and bring about changes that will allow for non-farming rural dwellers to set up home in the areas where they were raised.

The Sinn Féin planning spokesperson added, “I welcome the support of other parties for this motion which is in fact a vote of confidence in developing our rural communities and we welcome the Ministers commitment to address this anomaly when he introduces a new Single Planning Policy Statement.”

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Posted by Newry Times News on Jan 31 2014. Filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry