IoffL standard submission to planning authorities.

spongebob

Yo

Having banged on here about the weak USO, the weaker ODTR and the fact that the Irish public are being left to the tender mercies of Tony O'Reilly and his banking mates in New York I think that there is a window to have some input into developing alternatives thru the planning system.

Has anybody thought of cobbling together a submission that can be made to any planning authority which is currently formulating a county development plan, mainly to do with providing alternative ducting to Eircom when building new apartment blocks and estates?

This can be printed and signed by members in a given county and sent in as well as being used to lobby councillors.

M

SkepticOne

Originally posted by Muck
Has anybody thought of cobbling together a submission that can be made to any planning authority which is currently formulating a county development plan, mainly to do with providing alternative ducting to Eircom when building new apartment blocks and estates?

Where did this Eircom ducting rule come from? Are all local authorities required to implement it?

spongebob

Coff, Schplutter!

water and phone and sewage are considered to be essential services and it is required by many authorities that they be provisioned into houses, especially on estates or blocks, not one off houses. This provisioning is detailed by the builders in the planning submission. It has evolved rather than be laid down by law in a planning act.

Eircom are the default beneficiary, no builder I know of has EVER handed all the ducting to NTL or Chorus although they COULD if they so wished where the estate or block of apartments in in a franchise area for example.

I am merely saying that if u bury 1 pipe in a road (to house the wires or fibres) why not bury 2?

M

Fergus

I am a bit committed to other areas with the research stuff, but I think this is a very good idea. You seem to have some experience of the planning system Muck.. can we call on your assistance in lobbying this area?

yellum

Thats sounds very good, I was thinking about this in regards to wireless planning for estates but didn't know who to approach.

Keep us informed, thanks.

Damien

spongebob

I will do some research on this matter, of particular interest is the statutory obligation (Planning Act 2000) upon local authorities to have regard to:

'Proper planning and sustainable developement'

in this act. The word sustainable is a new addition the proper planning bit is even older than teh Moriarity tribunal.

These planning acts together with some local customs and priorities are then turned into a county development plan.

For example, a submission should stress the link the link between modern telecoms and sustainable development. One could be a bastard and state that planning permission should NEVER be given more than 2.5 miles from an Eircom CO because it is technically unfeasible to provide broadband at those distances. The current telecoms equipment , analog and isdn, should work to five miles or thereabouts. As 50% of the land surface of Ireland is more than 2.5 miles from a CO then it could be argued that it is not cost effective to provision services in these areas and that these rural parts should be abandoned in favour of zones where these services can be provided without bankrupting poor Tony O'Reilly and his banking buddies in NY

Remember there is an election coming up!

M

dahamsta

Good man (or woman) Muck.

adam

pete

Originally posted by Muck
Remember there is an election coming up!

It was really weird hearing Jim Mitchell on Morning Ireland this morning, talking about the need for further development of the western seaboard and mentioning "electricity" and "broadband" in the same sentence. Promising, granted....but still weird.

Mind you, I wouldn't mind some further development of western bloody Dublin as at this rate Achill Island will have DSL before me. Bah.

pete

spongebob

With an election in the air it sounds really good that there is a committment to lay fibre up and down the west coast (at the cost of approx 1 - 2km of the M50 extension in case any skangers read this)

The fact that the entire local loop is controlled by €ircon does not seem to impinge on the politicos , Mary O'Rourke probably thinks that broadband came to Athlone when the medium wave transmitter was built there in 1928

The broadband fibre is less than useless in the absence of a strategy to deliver bitrate to the population at work and at home. €ircon have so far pulled out of EVERY plan that the politicos had to provide decent bitrates in the west except for a fibre around the Donegal coast. Now the ESB are supposed to deliver the fibre but as we know there is still no way to deliver it to the home thru the electricity lines.

The last scheme to try this (Nortel in Manchester 2 years ago) went wrong when the data started to broadcast outta the wires.

My suggestions are that the planning authorities start to include conditions in terms of

1. Provide pipes to carriers other than €ircon when new housing is built.
2. Provide pipes when water schemes are laid, much of the rural water system in Ireland is being upgraded and gridded together.
3. Provide pipes when big fat gas pipes are laid as in the Limerick Galway Mayo Galway Dublin hole to be dug this year.
4. Provide pipes along all these new roads that they are building in the next few years.
5. Provide pipes along the LUAS

ALL of this can be done thru the planning system as a condition of granting the planning permission for teh development in the first place.

M

murcielago

In February 2001 I had a meeting with the planning officials of my LA. I have on disc a one page summary report typed up within hours of the meeting. I do not have available at present my contemporaneous notes or documentation. Accordingly the following is based on my summary report plus recollection.


1. The officials were then in the process of preparing their first draft LA multi-year statutory development plan.

2. Submissions from interested parties - individuals or local groups - were welcome up to an expiry date of 16 March 2001. (see #6 below).

3. Submissions to be effective should refer to public policy issues (available from the LA). That is, the submission should show how it would contribute to the attainment of some public policy objective. This is in line with marketing theory and practice mentioned elsewhere (an exchange of benefits). While not mandatory individuals or local groups might consider retaining a professional T&C planner to help with their submissions. This would be particularly appropriate in the case of local groups who could share the cost.

4. The draft plan would have to be ready for publication by a certain deadline. My recollection was of September/October 2001 but I do not recall seeing any announcement of a plan having been published to date.

5. Interested parties would have a further window of opportunity to make submissions to the second (draft) plan. This would be a rather brief period of opportunity and it would be much more difficult to make an effective submission at that time. The planners will have been 'conditioned' by what they will have put into the first draft involving considerable internal dialogue amongst themselves etc. They will have acquired 'ownership' of the plan, and will be up against deadline to publish the second draft.

6. Timetables for processing development plans were flexible under the original Local Government (Planning & Development) Act 1963. Under new regulations the DOE stipulated 16 March 2001 for publication of my LA first draft development plan and again a deadline for stage 2 and so on. While from memory I have an impression that the same deadline dates applied to all LAs I cannot be certain. But a phone call to any LA will answer the question.

7. I found the planning officials most receptive and helpful.


Subject to avoidance of embarrassment I can send in confidence to Muck a slightly edited (deleting personal etc. information) copy of my report. Possible embarrassment arises from the possibility that Muck might be one of the officials met by me. Muck could PM me if s/he wishes.


Murcielago

dahamsta

Subject to avoidance of embarrassment I can send in confidence to Muck a slightly edited (deleting personal etc. information) copy of my report. Possible embarrassment arises from the possibility that Muck might be one of the officials met by me. Muck could PM me if s/he wishes.

Either/Or, do so please.

adam

spongebob

I trust the PM from me to Murcielago worked , if not post here.

M

murcielago

Thanks Muck.

Note PM accepts a maximum of only 1500 words. I have sent my piece in 2 parts.


M

spongebob

Hi

From some reseach done over the weekend it seems.

1. The first batch of county dev plans cover 1997-2002

2. The second batch are BEING finalised but can still be changed, they will come in around 2003 (maybe late this year in some local authorities)

3. The councils are looking at a fund of 30m euros for the provision of broadband

I must hone my planningspeak before I speak to some people later this week. I will then PM a draft for comment to certain individuals for comment before posting a generic one here.

The generic one can be copied and pasted and sent to any local authority.

M

spongebob

Hi

I have organised some submissions and stuff with a view to making the planners/councillors take their responsibilities towards insfrastructure more seriously, in a holistic rather than a narrow way that is, when formulating county development plans and the like.

It is looking bad, so far.

1. No planners anywhere seem to think that ducting for future Telecoms and Gas services should be included in dev plans even where fibre/gas mains are in or near the town in question, or are about to arrrive during the course of the county development plan they are working on but are not under the streets/estates where the people actually live.

2. Planners are still in Water/Sewage/Roads mode as regards 'infrastructure' . As the councils are busy taking over community run infrastructure such as water group schemes they fail to see how a system such as a community run cable system in a town can enhance the environment in that town and think that it would be a hinderance to their strategy of centralising service provisioning with the council or private sector only.

3. It seems that planners everywhere are under severe pressure from central goverment to move people into towns and to stop giving planning permission outside towns. Rows about this and rows about housing strategies in county development plans are all they seem to care about at the moment even though towns and villages are the ideal place to provide infractructure such as Fibre/Cable/Gas in order to differentiate them from rural areas where this would be too expensive.

4. It seems that councillors everywhere are not able to get the planners to listen to THEIR concerns which are not quite those in point 3, many councillors are most reluctant to endorse or to advocate any technology which could lead to further depletion of rural populations. Therefore they are reluctant to weigh in behind the provision of ducting for example as this would further exacerbate a rural/urban divide.

Conclusion.

Many County Councillors don't want to know about it, they do not see that fibre rings are not the same as broadband in houses.

Most planners see it as a low priority, they are much more concerned (I joke not) about septic tanks and actually spend more time dealing with septic tanks that they do with Gas/Electricity/Roads/Telecoms in rural areas. Their view of their function in service provisioning is narrow and skewed as a consequence.

This data is collated from a number of friends in the west/midlands who have made a variety of representations/enquiries in the past 6 weeks. It may not be (I hope it isn't) an accurate reflection of planning in other parts of the country

Sigh!

M

yellum

Could this be a job for the Lobbying Working Group ?

(begin generic superhero theme tune )

vinnyfitz

Don't despair muck.
I think you have come up with some interesting stuff.
Can I suggest you talk to someone in the Irish Planning Institute - the professional institute for planners - they are helpful people and should point you in the right direction as to what the policy is. They post their Council's email addresses and phone numbers on their site. http://www.irishplanninginstitute.ie/
I see they are having their conference in Galway in April.

Keep pushing it.
.

spongebob

Aha

I never thought of them..... I assumed that a lot of 'central directives' came straight from the dept of Noel Dempsey rather than a Mary or a Mary.

Let me see what they have to say for themselves, I will post back here if there is any evidence of sentience in there.

The interesting fact though is that a load of county development plans are being discussed right now country wide. These will kick in next year and will determine overall planning until 2007-2008

I would contend that interested persons all know a councillor and can hassle them locally, the lobby group is there to hassle Mary and Mary and other TD's who display some knowledge or and interest in communications.

Off with yiz and report back here on any lobbying strategies for local authorities that seem to impress the councillors. We have to get something wired into the ends of these fibres wherever we are.


M

vinnyfitz

The institute is where you should find planners who take a broader view, who know whether this issue is being debated at all. Who know why its not being discussed at the moment.
They have thier own problems trying to improve the quality of planning in in ireland.
The funny thing about planning - as you are finding out - is that all Councils write their own rules within a pretyt broad framework from national Government.
The Planners instititute, Bord Pleanala and the Dept Environment try to improve things each in their own way.
The "Directives" that come from Dempsey are more often advisory and in practice come from and the Planning Division in the Department run by an Assistant Secretary called Mary Moylan. You could also ring up her division and ask someone whether they have ever issued any advice to local authorities about cables etc. You could also ask them is any of the submissions made to Dempsey in advance of the 2000 Planning Act being finalised coverd this issue. You might find them very helpful. If they are not you could also put in a Fredom of Information request asking them the same thing. But don't threaten that if you are talking to them - they know it anyway and you will only annoy them.
Good luck.

davros

You might get An Taisce behind you on the sustainable development side of planning. They are getting a lot of flak just now for advocating towns and villages over one-off housing.

Also the National Spatial Strategy should contain some reference to the broadband issue. The draft last September did not. I made a submission then but have yet to see the final result.

dahamsta

Good work Muck. Have you though about joining the Lobbying Working Group? I'm sure Howard would be interested in discussing this with you.

adam

vinnyfitz

Muck The following is a quote from the group of civil servants which is driving the regional broadband policy
"Local ducting and fibre networks
58. To minimise the cost and disruption caused by the road openings relating to telecommunications networks, it is necessary to ensure that -

Ø there is good forward planning for future telecommunications needs

Ø local authorities have adequate control over necessary road works

Ø ducting is, as far possible, provided as part of new infrastructure build and, in the case of existing infrastructure, at the same time that other ducting is being installed

Ø there is a common set of planning and local authority guidelines for the installation of telecommunications infrastructures to provide consistency, transparency and certainty

Ø the draft ducting guidelines prepared by the Department of Public Enterprise in consultation with the Department of Environment and Local Government and local authorities are adopted as a national standard.

Ø road trenches and/or ducting is shared by telecommunications operators as far as possible.

59. The Group is aware that the Department of Public Enterprise’s Communications (Regulation) Bill and additional pending legislation (the Department of the Environment and Local Government’s broader Control of Road Openings Bill) will provide greater control to local authorities in this area. Insofar as the telecommunications industry is concerned, the Group considers it important that local authorities have effective power to ensure that sharing of ducting becomes the norm. Legislation should also provide for the application of common technical standards - to apply in all local authority areas - to be drawn up by the DPE and DoELG.

60. The terms of any future planning permissions should make it obligatory for the developer to lay ducting and transfer it to the local authority when building urban roads, housing and industrial estates. We understand that the Department of Environment and Local Government is considering issuing an administrative circular to local authorities to this effect.

Check it out the top report on this page http://www.gov.ie/taoiseach/publication/default.htm

Maybe we should press Environment to add a couple more points into this circular?

spongebob

Yo

My sympathies, you had to get to section 58 before you found the relevant bits.

My concern about the wording of this is as follows, I am digest ing it a bit here.

1. The thrust is to stop rooting and diggings as per happened in Dublin (mainly) c 1998-2001 where streets were dug up again and again.

2. The emphasis is therefore to co-ordinate and licence this digging and to share the ducting if possible.

3. This co-ordination to take place between Telcos (I assume the phrases Licenced Telecommunication Operators is operative in this context) and Local Authorities.

4. It does not spell out unequivocably that the Local Authority should dig, provide duct, then stop everyone else digging because the duct is there and make them use it!

I am coming at it from a different angle.

1. Licenced Telecommunication Operators are, generally, either bankrupt or financially embarrased

2. THEREFORE they are not inclined to dig anything if possible because it is too costly. This is more so in rural towns given the lower population/business densities. Dublin 2 is probably still at risk.

3. The Local authorities must take this excavation function upon themselves when provisioning water/sewage/footpaths,as a marginal extra cost to these works , thereby taking control of the ducts from the word go.

4. The Local authorities must additionally ensure that when developments of housing/industry/business occur, and when roads/ducting are installed, that ducting is installed FOR the authority to do with as it sees fit and handed over to that authority.

5. Once a decent amount of ducting is in place and under the control of the local authority (not under the control of New York VC types that is) at this point the local authority should have a flexible attitude as to whom is given access to this ducting.

6 Community run groups and not necessarily Licenced Telecommunication Operators should be considered for inclusion on the list of competent parties to provision service thru local authority owned ducting ....they can always get a licence later if necessary.


M

vinnyfitz

I take your point Muck.
I think that what they are saying in Para 60 does appear to match up with your point number 4.
The trick would be to talk informally to the people in Dept Environment who are contemplating drafting the circular, encourage them to press on and and make sure they have thought of all the issues you have identified.
Once we have got the picture a formal letter from IOFFL to Minister Dempsey might not go amiss - who knows there may be people who would oppose this sort of circular being issued. We should get our support onto the record.

spongebob

I had a look at your link to Berties dept and the doc. I wonder whos who on the committee?

There is a match on point 4 /60 but the idea of 'ownership' seems limited to what can be squeezed outta the private sector in planning conditions (aka planning gain....where you can get something done for free if you are a local authority).

There seems to be no plan to build along with other infrastructure water/sewage etc etc which means that point 60 needs to be fattened out a tad.

Check your private messages by the way (user cp link top of screen)

M