Landscape character assessment has ‘destroyed’ our area
FINE GAEL Councillor Mike Kennelly is demanding a full planning meeting for the Listowel area to hammer out a number of issues, not least the hugely-controversial Landscape Character Assessment that finds massive tracts of the North Kerry area – including Ballybunion – to be of ‘ no scenic value’.
Many fear the document is a key plank of a policy that is seeing the region shoulder a disproportionate number of windfarms to other areas of the county.
Now, Cllr Kennelly and colleagues fear the issue will simply be kicked into touch before it can be properly addressed in the context of the looming County Development Plan. In the course of debate on the issue on Monday, Cathaoirleach of the Listowel Municipal Area Mike Foley said the Assessment had ‘ destroyed’ the area.
“The Landscape Character Assessment has destroyed our area, and has destroyed it in tourism because.. it states large areas are of no scenic importance. How can you promote tourism in an area when a document holds this?” Cllr Kennelly appealed for a meeting on the issue: “We have a County Development Plan coming up and I think we’re on our knees in relation to planning where we are, especially with the wind turbines. We honestly do not know as a group where we stand. We have to sit down with the planners drawing it up and we’ve got to have our ducks in a row in relation to this. I know we’re in the middle of Covid and the CDP is still progressing, but don’t let it happen underneath our noses again where decisions are made and we end up paying the piper.”