Tipperary Council says it can't stop serial objections to farm building projects

The strain and financial pressure serial objectors to planning applications for agricultural developments are putting on Tipperary’s farmers was condemned at a County Council meeting on Monday but a senior planner says there is nothing the local authority can do to stop them.

Cllr John O’Heney highlighted the “huge frustration” in the agricultural sector at serial objections being lodged to farming projects across the county at Tipperary County Council’s October meeting in Nenagh.

The Lattin councillor, who will contest the upcoming General Election as an Independent candidate, told Council management he was contacted by several farmers encountering “severe difficulties” in securing planning permissions for developments such as cattle cubicles and slurry tanks due to these serial objectors nationally.

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He pointed out the projects being held up by these objections were very important from an “animal welfare and environmental perspective” and called for measures to be introduced to help the farming community deal with this problem.

Cllr O’Heney cited the case of one serial objector who has said he is going to keep objecting to every single agricultural development proposed in county Tipperary.

“It’s putting huge strain and pressure on our local farmers. The delays this is causing is having huge knock on effects on farmers and the contractors they engage.

“It’s slowing down plans to upgrade their enterprises and make them more efficient.

“I know we are tied into European legislation but this is a major problem farmers are experiencing and I feel it has to be highlighted today.

“I want something put in place to curb serial objections in the agricultural sector,” he pleaded.

Tipperary County Council Senior Executive Planner Anne-Marie Devaney responded that she recognised the frustrations parties were experiencing in relation to objections to agricultural developments but the mechanism for making submissions to planning applications was set out in the Planning and Development Acts and it was outside the Council’s discretion to interfere with that.

She said any member of the public can make submissions to a planning application within five weeks of its receipt by the Council.

“We have no mechanism to preclude third party submissions and they are entirely entitled to appeal (planning decisions) to An Bord Pleanála,” she outlined.

Ms Devaney said there had been a history of delays in An Bord Pleanála decisions due to a backlog of cases but over the last month there has been a noticeable difference in terms of the turnaround of cases.

She noted there was a “very high correlation” between the planning decisions made by Tipperary County Council and An Bord Pleanála.

“The best we can hope for is a quick turnaround (of planning decisions) and the most we can do is make robust decisions,” she added.

This isn’t the first time this year, the problem of serial objections to farm developments has been highlighted with Tipperary County Council senior management.

In March, South Tipperary IFA Chairman Pat Carroll told a meeting of the Council an “urgent solution” needed to be found to the problem of serial objections to farm developments from individuals and bodies in other parts of the country, with some living as far as 150 miles away.

He said objections were even being lodged against organic farmers’ building projects such as sheds for straw bedding for livestock.

Mr Carroll said some farmers’ building costs went up 15-20% because of the delays in securing planning permission for developments.