The Government’s plans for more one off rural housing is going to undermine their attempts to tackle climate change, a professor has argued. 

Tánaiste Simon Harris has promised an overhaul of rules governing rural housing, criticising the current system as “overly rigid” and having “held rural communities back for too long”. 

If passed, the new rules would mean anyone living in a rural area for a period of time or had a need to live there would have a ‘reasonable expectation’ of planning permission approval. 

On The Hard Shoulder, UCC Economics Professor Frank Crowley said more one off housing would mean more emissions from transport. 

“Basically, we want to support things like viable public transport and reducing transport emissions,” he said. 

“I suppose changing one off housing goes again, flies in the face of all that.” 

Seafront houses in Kerry. Picture by: Alamy.com.

While Professor Crowley conceded most cars would soon be electric at some point in the future, he noted that even EVs are “carbon intensive”. 

“It still takes an awful lot of energy to power a car,” he explained. 

“But we know that this completely undermines compact development, the national planning framework, that it undermines reducing energy emissions. 

“Even yesterday, we're going to miss the targets that we've set ourselves for 2030 by a good bit, by a very, very large bit.”

Professor Crowley noted that if Ireland misses EU climate targets then it would “cost the State a fortune” and argued that one off housing is “locking in infrastructure that is very carbon intensive”. 

'Very troublesome'

Also on the programme, Independent Ireland TD Michael Fitzmaurice said the new rules could help reverse the ‘alarming lack of under 14s” in much of the west. 

“We need to keep rural areas and small towns viable,” the Roscommon-Galway TD said. 

“Let's be very clear on this; let no one get carried away that there'll be houses built one after another - there's about 5,000 rural plannings a year. 

“There are a lot of sons and daughters; in a housing crisis, we have got to make sure that we facilitate people.

“And, at the moment, the interpretation by different councils right around this country is very troublesome.” 

Main image: One off rural housing in Dún Chaoin. Picture by: Alamy.com.