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The Planning System and Flood Risk Management
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The planning system plays a major national and local role in ensuring that development is promoted and guided in a manner that is sustainable in economic, social and environmental terms.
The Government’s National Spatial Strategy 2002-2020, the National Development Plan 2007-2013, the National Sustainable Development Strategy - Making Ireland’s Development Sustainable (2002) and the Planning and Development Act 2000, provide the frameworks and policies under which proper planning and sustainable development can be achieved.
In recent years, we have become increasingly aware of the importance of factoring the risk to people, property, the overall economy and the environment from flooding into the planning system, and the role that good planning has in avoiding and reducing such risk that could otherwise arise in the future. The 2004 Report of the Flood Policy Review Group which was approved by the Government highlighted the need to pro-actively manage flood risk.
There are many areas, including towns and cities that are already at risk from periodic flooding. The effects of climate change, such as more severe rainfall events and rising sea levels, will increase these risks and may put other areas at risk that may not have flooded in the past. Adapting to the reality of climate change therefore requires us to be even more vigilant in ensuring that risks of flooding into the future are integrated into the planning process, first through the spatial planning process at regional, city and county and local levels, and also in the assessment of development proposals by planning authorities and An Bord Pleanála.
These guidelines require the planning system at national, regional and local levels to:
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Avoid development in areas at risk of flooding, particularly floodplains, unless there are proven wider sustainability grounds that justify appropriate development and where the flood risk can be reduced or managed to an acceptable level without increasing flood risk elsewhere;
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development based on avoidance, reduction and mitigation of flood risk; and
Adopt a sequential approach to flood risk management when assessing the location for new
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and planning appeals.
Incorporate flood risk assessment into the process of making decisions on planning applications
The Government places a high degree of importance on planning and development measures as a critically important element of its overall strategic approach to adaptation to climate change and flood risk management, building upon its long-standing acknowledgement of flooding in legislation as an important planning issue.
We urge planning authorities, An Bord Pleanála, regional authorities, applicants for planning permission, their agents and developers to study the guidelines and implement them fully. In particular, we would urge elected members to implement these guidelines in reviewing development plans, especially in zoning land for development.
While the consideration of flood risk may, for valid and justifiable reasons, constrain development in some areas, these guidelines also recognise the fact that many of the areas where people live and work are already subject to flood risk, and that the needs for regeneration and growth can be reconciled, while taking due account of the need to minimise and mitigate such risks.
Mr. John Gormley, T.D.,
Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government.
Dr. Martin Mansergh, T.D.,
Minister of State at the Department of Finance, with special responsibility for the OPW.
Government of Ireland 2009 - Personal Name
978-1-4064-2467-6
NONE
Management
English
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