Cussen the planning 'regulator' is an unelected political appointment by Eoghan Murphy. Another hangover from his truly abysmal spell in housing.
He has massively overstepped his brief and is at odds with several county development plans.
Before I get the expert opinion of those who have never dealt with this beauty let me point out that he his directly responsible for blocking the building of thousands of houses in the middle of a supposed crisis.
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Planning watchdog criticises excessive rezoning for housing by Cork County Council
The local authority has been told to rethink its housing targets and zoning policy as it could result in over development in some areaswww.irishexaminer.com
Cork county council taking this jackass to court and getting a decision from the courts tells you all you need to know about this ass*ole. He has no legal authority for the decisions he's making
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Planning regulator was ‘rattled’ by local authority’s legal action
Watchdog sought meeting with Minister for Housing over Cork County Council challengewww.irishtimes.com
What do we want ? Not houses
Where do we want them? Somewhere else.
We are feeling the effects of a regulatory body appointment that came from the brains trust who gave us our massively corrupt planning board.
Its no wonder people cant get houses.
What does being unelected have to do with it? Should we have an elected planning regulator? Maybe an elected financial regulator as well, that'd work great I'd imagine. Or let's go whole hog and get elected judges like the states.
He doesn't make policies or decisions. He simply checks if Council plans are in line with national policy and other statutory requirements, and if not then pulls them up on it. A lot of the time, it's simply to say they haven't don't the evidence.
The exact same process is followed in the UK with the planning inspectorate. The fact the Tories are better able to accept an independent audit of their plan making than the pitch fork bearing dipshit cllrs of this country is a sad indictment of local government here.
On the housing - you're clearly of the school of thinking that we should go back to zoning land for 100 times more homes than we actually need regardless of location or suitability. That worked out very well previously.