A New 50 bed retirement home with 15 associated independent living units for Kanturk has been given the green light.

Kanturk retirement home gets green light

A New 50 bed retirement home with 15 associated independent living units for Kanturk has been given the green light.

Earlier this year, Dan O' Connor applied to Cork County Council seeking planning permission to construct a retirement home, 28 associated living units and 77 dwellings on a 10 acre site just east of Kanturk town which was mainly to be located in a green belt area.

Considering it's location, the amount of development and range of uses were not considered acceptable and the applicant was asked to amend the proposal to its current scale. However, considering it would still be developed on a green belt area, councillors from Cork County Council had to vote to decide whether they would permit a material contravention of the County Development plan 2003.

At the most recent meeting of Cork County Council, the Council's Senior Planner recommended that planning permission be given the go ahead and 41 councillors voted in favour of the development. However, speaking in council chambers before the vote, Cllr John Gilroy described as "inappropriate" the fact that councillors were only issued with the full report on the material contravention within minutes of the vote and was not present for the voting process.

Calls for reinstatement of Greener Home Scheme

Councillor John Mulvihill Junior has called for the immediate reinstatement of full grant payments under the Greener Home Scheme, which Minister Eamon Ryan announced three weeks ago had run out of money.

According to the councillor, so far, the Greener Homes Scheme has proved to be particularly successful in encouraging over 16,000 householders to install sustainable and environmentally friendly heating systems, such as wood pellet boilers, in their homes.

"Schemes such as this will save the country money in the long term and it makes no sense to cut it off, simply because the money has run out. It again reflects a lack of proper planning on the part of this government. Minister Ryan should have sought cabinet approval for the introduction of a supplementary estimate to allow the scheme to continue.

"However, it is clear that the decision to cut the grants payable under the Scheme - in some cases they are more than halved - will significantly reduce the incentive for householders to move to sustainable and environmentally friendly heating systems," he said.

Concluding Cllr Mulvihill called on Minister Ryan to reinstate the scheme in full and to maintain the levels of payments that have been available up to this and for the extension of the scheme to cover wind energy.