16 February 2018
By Bryan Smyth
bryan@TheCork.ie
Cork County Mayor Cllr Declan Hurley (Independent)
Mayor of the County of Cork, Cllr Declan Hurley has welcomed the publication of Project Ireland 2040, the Government’s National Development Plan and National Planning Framework, but wants to ensure that successive governments will deliver the policies and spending programmes within the timelines outlined.
In commenting on Project Ireland 2040 Mayor Hurley said “I am delighted to see Cork feature strongly in these documents. I am particularly pleased to see that since the publication of the draft National Planning Framework we appear to have had a significant shift toward emphasising and promoting the development of strong towns as central to the future sustainability of Cork County as a whole.”
Mayor Hurley also noted that these important National Strategic Plans focus on the requirement for equal opportunities through technological advances across rural and urban areas.
While specific population targets are not yet set out for in areas outside of the cities across the country, Mayor Hurley considers it critical that the future Regional Spatial and Economic Strategies, yet to be developed, will provide for an appropriate level of population, employment and household growth to ensure Cork’s towns and rural areas will have the same opportunity as that of the major cities.
“While I wholeheartedly accept urbanisation as a positive strategic direction, we must remember that the core attractiveness of much of our county, and key to our quality of life offering, is the uniqueness and diversity across our region. This is critical to our future success.”
