Treatment plant delay blocking Mountcharles village regeneration says Cllr Noel Jordan

Irish Water is blocking attempts at the regeneration of Mountcharles, claims local councillor Noel Jordan 

He told Tuesday's meeting of the Donegal Municipal District people were frustrated and annoyed that plans which had been accepted by Donegal County Council's planning section were being blocked by Irish Water due to the lack of a new water treatment plant for the village. 

He recalled how some time back Irish Water had announced a new treatment plant for the village and indicated the commencement date was to be mid-2023.

"I told Irish Water at one of our workshops that they were depriving people of building in Mountcharles. We are trying to regenerate the village and this does not help. They said they would engage with any planning application that came in and indicated their own project for the new plant would start by mid-2023.

"However, he added, "this has not happened and now they are refusing planning applications and indicated that they would not allow any more housing developments in the area as the old treatment plant was already oversubscribed."

Cllr Jordan said their initial announcement for the new plant was met with a certain degree of optimism as developers had indicated that they were keen to start work on housing projects and in the process help regenerate village life.

"The crux however is Irish Water still has not indicated any timeframe to the developers that would allow them to proceed to apply for planning permissions.

"I know of one particular planning application that the council's planners have no problem with but Irish Water have indicated they would not accommodate him until they had started work on the treatment plant."

He added Irish Water needs to come up with a commencement date so that developers can plan ahead in the knowledge that their applications would meet all requirements, particularly the service Irish Water provided.

Cllr Jordan said he understood that if someone was going to build on an old site where a house already stood the connection was already in place so there should be no problem. However, any buildings on a new site were not allowed.

He also pointed out that people interested in selling land to allow the council to build social housing in Mountcharles are also being affected.

"There has been a number of expressions of interest from our area but this is what we are getting back from Irish Water and it's not good enough. They made a commitment and made an announcement yet they won't give a starting date and stop all planning. Our concerns seem to fall on deaf ears."

He added this was probably happening in a number of villages too.

"How long is this going to go on?" he asked.