New plan needed for town after jobs boost
A new town plan is needed for Dundalk following the announcement that Chinese bio-pharmaceutical firm WuXi Biologics is to locate in Dundalk, Cllr Mark Dearey told the Municipal District of Dundalk meeting last week.
He said that the ‘incredible announcement’ the previous day would put pressure on the council’s industrial and planning policies due to the scale of the investment and size of the site, which would bring high paying jobs to the town,
These jobs will be very high paying compared to the other IDA jobs in town, which will welcome were amongst the lowest paid in the county,
They didn’t want to face problems with housing shortages and worse traffic jams in the area and an updated plan was needed.
Director of Service Frank Pentony said he was delighted with the jobs announcement.
He told councillors that part of the conditions of the planning permission required the company to do a mobility plan for the site which will operate 24 hours a day with 80 people on site at any one time.
He revealed that work would start on the new urban development plan for Dundalk/Blackrock, which would be a local area plan in 2019 . Work would also commence on the next County Development plan. The local authority had held off on doing this due to the National Planning Framework 2040.