County Council has ‘lost battle’ against log cabins

LOG cabins came up for discussion again at the April Gorey Kilmuckridge District meeting with one councillor saying that they’d lost the battle against them.

Speaking at the meeting, Executive Planner Oisín Boland said the council are not against log cabins but they must be in the appropriate setting. Cllr Willie Kavanagh highlighted one planning application case in particular which was located in a rural area without any neighbours.

“It was rejected because of the log cabins, you could build a concrete job down there if you like. The sewerage and everything was okay,” said Cllr Kavanagh.

Cllr Sullivan suggested that Wexford County Council planning section come up with a plan or policy and work with the public to tackle this issue.

“We can sit here and we can talk all day about a perfect world but the world out there is very different. We don’t seem to be able to organise ourselves in relation to log cabins, we’ve lost the battle because the country is littered with them and that’s the bottom line.”

“People are building them and the best of luck to them, I’m not giving out to them,” said Cllr Sullivan.

Cllr Anthony Donohue said he understood Cllr Sullivan’s stance on this but that he has dealt with cases where homeowners have built log cabins without planning permission and it has been reported.

“The County Council have statutory guidelines that they have to issue a warning letter and if they don’t remove the development in four weeks they’ll face court and a fine of €12,500. So you’re nearly better to try and see if you can get planning first,” said Cllr Donohue.