access planning files

its baltic

Lads,
Is there anyone else here who has tried to access Clare county council's planning files, they seem to open in a file called DJVU but for the life of me, I just cant open any of them. any help appreciated.
Cheers

Stuxnet

you want this plugin

http://www.caminova.net/en/downloads/download.aspx?id=1

Clareman

What Bobby says, it's actually good software and easy to navigate through the planning stuff

Shoes&Frocks

I'm having awful trouble with this too. I downloaded the djvu software about 2 years ago when Limerick County Council first introduced it and it always seemed to work for Clare Coco too.

Yesterday i decided to update the djvu and still i cant see anything. I tried it from my dads computer last night and the files were visable. Very strange. how come i can see them on his computer and not mine???

Clareman

Sounds like a corrupt install to me, uninstall it and reinstall it

bridgeman

Does anybody else here think or ever had an experience to believe that Clare County Council planning office is a very corrupt place . I built a house myself and had to build the style of house the planning office wanted not what I wanted myself . A couple of years later a Limerick townie bought an old house in the same locality and made major alterations to it without planning looked for retention and got it the house looks awful . Later I heard he or the person he bought it off has connections in the planning office. Where is the justice in this ? I should of just built and then have looked for planning . I am thinking about going to the papers with this . Anyone with any other similar experience ?

Shoes&Frocks

I would tend to agree with you.
Although planners are not supposed to give 'opinions' on design, they continually do. You hire an architect to design a house for you, pay them loads of money then a planner, who has an 'opinion' decides they don't like it and make you change. It is totally corrupt.
Also, why do councilors get to give they're tuppence-worth. If you know one, all you have to do is get them to 'represent' you and your in.........it makes me sick.
I'm not entirely sure how true this story is, but i've heard it from a few sources so you can take bits of it and decide what to believe; A developer bought a site in Quin, opposite the Abbey. When he went for planning the development was refused on the grounds that it would block the view of the abbey when driving into Quin. (Fair enough i suppose) However, soon after a house was built opposite the site in question, also blocking the view of the abbey. This house got planning with no issues what so ever and as it turns out, the guy who built it was a planner himself in Clare Co Co. He wasn't from the area or even from within the (ridiculous) 8 mile radius but still got it.
It irritates me that he got this planning permission when people from the area or more than an 8 mile radius cannot or have to fight a very long time for it.
The planning laws suck in this country.

Sorry, i had to get that off my chest. Rant over!!!!

luap_42

Many people have fallen foul of the corrupt planning process within Clare County Council.

I am at the receiving end of political interference in a blatant violation of our local area plan by the Clare County Council's planning department, which has now been compounded by An Bord Pleanala overriding all of their own inspector's recommendations (which were all in our favour) and backing up the council's decision to ignore local (and national) policy. We know that FF contibutions were made and that T.D's and minister's were involved, and therefore assume that ABP has had it's buttons pushed also. To support this we have been told by another local authority's enforcement officer that ABP are not immune from political interference in any particular decision.

Clare County Council's planning department has been voted as the worst in the country by the Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland. Check this irish Examiner story: http://archives.tcm.ie/irishexaminer/2008/07/17/story67524.asp

I have done a fair bit of investigating dodgy planning that I can see with my own eyes locally, and every time I check the files, the planners are backing the money, the politics, but rarely following proper planning or Joe Soap.

To compound things, their enforcement department doesn't. Enforce that is. The most they will do is send notices. They hardly ever take anyone to court unless you are an easy target. They ignore blatant violations of planning (as they did in our case) and then have meetings with the planners about how they are going to allow the violation to continue (by breaking their own planning laws). I know, because I was told the sequence of events by someone in the planning department.

Furthermore, some of the enforcement officers were previously planners in the same department. One of these has made some of the most corrupt planning decisions in the county (overriding all environmental guidelines), so hardly expect anything approaching proper planning from the likes of these corrupt officials.

If you search through their own on-line planning documents you will see case after case of planners following the money and politics rather than planning procedures. These people should be sacked and put in jail in my opinion.

WicklowRover

Two points.

Firstly, the DJVU reader that can be downloaded does not work with Google Chrome - it's a load of crap. Why can't all of the planning authorities agree on PDF format, which is an industry standard???

Secondly, all planning authorities are corrupt, crooked and should be all shot.

Fionnmccool

The Planning System in Clare as in all Local Authorities around the country is corrupt but not in the way you think. I should know...I am a Planning Officer in CXXXX County Council and have 1st hand experince of this.

The system stinks but it doesn't work by paying off Planning Officials...I was never offered or received payment for any planning decision. And to the best of my knowledge my Planning colleagues never received any either. The way the corruption works is far more insidious. And works like this;

In any application the applicant is entitled to seek representation from elected officials (councillors, TD's, Senators and even Ministers) which 80% of applications recieve. Always verbally (no written record for obvious reasons). This type of lobbying is a great voter catcher for the politician.

The Planning Officer assesses the application but invariably gets lobbied by the Politician (this is why political access to planners is always fought tool in tail by same politicians). Usually sitting at the end of the Planning Officers desk. If the Politician receives no joy from the Planning Officer assigned to the application then they proceed to lobby the Director of Services/County Manager of the Planning Department. The Manager/DOS do not have the backbone to say NO to these politicians. The DOS/Manager always take the line of least resistance. As Politicians can and do make life difficult for DOS/Mangers. Thus DOS apply pressure down the line to their underlings. First to the Senior Planner and further down to the Senior Executive Planner and finally to the same Planning Officer. Severe pressure is applied at this point and Planning Officers invariably cave in from this bullying. Planning Officers have been bullied so much so that they leave their posts to find other jobs.

At other times the DOS try to find alternative reasons to either grant/refuse. They see themselves as providing 'solutions'. But this is where the inconsistency arises. THESE so called SOLUTIONS LEAD TO INCONSISTENCIES. If professional planners are left to assess applications on their own without interference then the system will be consistent and Fair for all. But when interference arise, then this leads to the system being open to exploitation and inconsistency will arise.

Now I've also heard that Politicians wont lobby for an applicant unless they recieve payment. I dont know if this is true and doubt it in most cases. But politicans dont give a damn about good planning. They only care about vote gathering for the next election.

All of the above is the political process in the DEVELOPMENT CONTOL application process. The REAL corruption comes in the form of zoning land for the Development Plan in the FORWARD PLANNING section. I have to confess that I have never worked in 'Forward Planning' but the stories of politicians receiving money for zoning land is rampant across the land (MAHON TRIBUNAL et al). Its as bad in Co. Clare as in Dublin.

So What can be done about it????....Well the newspapers NEVER investigate this type of corruption of Political Interference. That would require too much research on behalf of the reporter. Besides..its far easier to slate the planning official than to carry out proper investigative journalistic work and expose those Politicians.

We the electorate never hold these politicans to account. We consistently vote for these gombeens as we think they will get us stuff.

The politicians we get is the collective will and reflection of the Irish psyche we have. WE GET WHAT WE DESERVE :-)

WE VOTE FOR BEND THE RULE POLITICIANS

Dr Kamikazi

+1
The people of Mayo knew P Flynn for what he was. The knew Beverly was more of the same.
They still voted for her.
They got proof. She got kicked out.
They still voted for her, she got taken back, Mayo got what it deserved.
Reminds me a bit of the story of the bridge that was going to be built in Sicily. So many delays over corruption and cute hoorishness it took the most corrupt cute mafia hoore to get it back on track:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article5864671.ece
And quite frankly, when it comes to depths of corruption, Irish politicians aren't even that good or devious, they never really progressed from crooked horse deals, they lack style, intelligence, imagination, flair and sense of scale.
They should either try harder or let honest people in, cause they're just not that good.

hollyoc

Fionnmccool totally agree. I am a graduate planning student currently doing research in this field. please mail me if you would be interested in having a quick chat.


Mod Note: Don't dig up ancient threads.