HomeMy WebLinkAbout2681 - Submission - [E] Aidan SherlockREC
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Dawson Street, Monaghan Town | T: 086 836 8643 | E: info@aidansherlock.ie
The Planning Department
Monaghan County Council
Town Hall Building
Monaghan Town
Co. Monaghan
19 September 2026
SUBMISSION / OBSERVATION ON A PLANNING APPLICATION
Made pursuant to Section 34(1) of the Planning and Development Act 2000 (as amended) and Article 29
of the Planning and Development Regulations 2001 (as amended)
Planning Register Reference: 2681
Applicant: Donal McGuigan
Development: Permission to construct a new bungalow style dwelling, install a new mechanical effluent
treatment system with mounded/raised percolation area, develop a new site entrance onto the public
roadway, together with all ancillary site works.
Location: Rosefield Townland, Ballinode, County Monaghan.
Observer: Ronan Daly, Rosefield Townland, Ballinode, County Monaghan.
Submitted by: Aidan Sherlock & Associates Ltd, Dawson Street, Monaghan, H18 A257, on behalf of the
above-named Observer.
Fee enclosed: €20.00 (prescribed fee under Schedule 9 of the Planning and Development Regulations
2001, as amended).
Drawings referred to: Plans, Sections and Elevations, Drawing No. 2025-06-26, dated August 2026,
received by the Planning Authority on 24 August 2026.
1.0 Introduction
This submission is made on behalf of the Observer within the statutory period of five weeks from the
date of receipt of the above application by the Planning Authority. The prescribed fee accompanies the
submission.
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The Observer respectfully requests that the Planning Authority refuse permission for the proposed
development for the reasons set out below, and that the Observer be notified of the decision of the
Planning Authority in accordance with Section 34(1) of the Act.
This submission is made by reference to the Monaghan County Development Plan 2025–2031, adopted
on 26 May 2025 and which came into effect on 7 July 2025, as subsequently amended by Variation No.
1 and by the Planning and Development (Monaghan County Development Plan 2025–2031) Direction
2025 issued on 21 October 2025 ("the Development Plan").
2.0 Status and Interest of the Observer
The Observer is the owner and occupier of the property at Rosefield Townland, Ballinode, County
Monaghan, which adjoins the application site to the north and which includes full ownership of the
shared boundary. The Observer’s holding and the extent of the application site are shown on the map
enclosed at Appendix 1.
The Observer is not opposed to appropriate residential development in the Ballinode area. This objection
is confined to the planning merits of this particular proposal at this particular location, and is founded on
the policies and objectives of the statutory Development Plan, on national planning policy, and on the
environmental and amenity consequences of the development as proposed.
3.0 Summary of Grounds of Objection
The proposed development is objected to on the following grounds, each of which is developed in the
sections that follow. The Observer respectfully submits that Grounds 1 to 5 would each, individually,
warrant refusal.
• Ground 1 – The proposal is contrary to the Core Strategy and Rural Settlement Strategy of the
Development Plan and to National Policy Objective 19 of the National Planning Framework, in
that it accommodates housing demand in the open countryside rather than directing it into the
established settlement of Ballinode.
• Ground 2 – The application fails to demonstrate a genuine functional or social rural-generated
housing need on the part of the applicant.
• Ground 3 – The site has not been demonstrated to be suitable for on-site effluent disposal. The
proposal for a mounded / raised percolation area is itself evidence of a constrained site.
• Ground 4 – The site does not possess the boundaries required by Section 15.9.2 and Table 15.3 of
the Development Plan. The roadside boundary must be removed to form the entrance and
visibility splays; the only other mature boundary is in the ownership and control of the Observer,
not the applicant; and a further length of boundary was removed from the site in 2025, prior to
the lodgement of this application.
• Ground 5 – The visibility splays shown on the submitted drawings are not constructed in
accordance with the Development Plan and materially overstate the sight distance available. The
proposed entrance would endanger public safety by reason of traffic hazard.
• Ground 6 – The proposal would contribute to, or consolidate, ribbon development along the
public road, contrary to Section 15.9.6 of the Development Plan.
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• Ground 7 – The application is not supported by the design, levels and finishes information
necessary to demonstrate compliance with Section 15.9.2, Policy RSDP 1 and Table 15.3 of the
Development Plan, and the drawings contain a material internal inconsistency.
• Ground 8 – The application is not accompanied by adequate ecological information to allow the
Planning Authority to complete Appropriate Assessment screening or to assess the loss of
hedgerow habitat.
• Ground 9 – The grant of permission would set an undesirable precedent, the cumulative effect of
which would undermine the Core Strategy of the Development Plan.
4.0 Ground 1: Conflict with the Core Strategy and Rural Settlement Strategy
4.1 The policy framework
Section 2.13 of the Development Plan categorises the rural area of County Monaghan into Category 1 –
Rural Areas Under Strong Urban Influence, and Category 2 – Remaining Rural Areas, expressly in
accordance with National Policy Objective 19 of the National Planning Framework. NPO 19 requires
planning authorities to ensure that, in rural areas under urban influence, the demonstration of a
functional economic or social requirement for housing need is applied, and to facilitate single housing in
the countryside by reference to the siting and design criteria set out in statutory guidelines and
development plans.
The application site at Rosefield Townland lies within [Category 1 – Rural Area Under Strong Urban
Influence, as delineated on Map 2.2 (RAUSUI Monaghan Town) of the Development Plan / Category 2 –
Remaining Rural Area]. In either case the applicant is required to demonstrate a genuine rural-
generated housing need; the requirement is applied most stringently in Category 1 areas.
Rural Settlements Objective RSO 1 of the Development Plan seeks to support a balanced approach to
the development of rural areas, to accommodate within the rural area people who are functionally or
socially part of the rural community, and expressly to direct urban-generated housing demand into
established settlements. Rural Settlements Objective RSO 2 seeks to deliver at least 20% of all new
housing in rural areas on brownfield sites, consistent with Regional Policy Objective 3.3 of the Regional
Spatial and Economic Strategy 2020–2032.
Strategic Objective SO 2 seeks to sustain traditional settlement patterns while developing the role and
function of each town, village and settlement in accordance with the settlement strategy. Strategic
Objective SO 3 seeks to promote sustainable compact development forms, ensuring the efficient use of
available public infrastructure and services.
4.2 Ballinode is a Tier 4 Village with capacity to accommodate this dwelling
Ballinode is identified in the Development Plan as a Tier 4 Village within the settlement hierarchy at
Section 2.6.4, and a village map with a defined settlement boundary is included at Chapter 9. Ballinode
is a serviced settlement with a public wastewater treatment plant and a public water supply.
Critically, Ballinode is one of a small number of settlements in the County whose population has fallen.
Table 1.4 of the Development Plan records the population of Ballinode as 400 in 2006, 473 in 2011 and
470 in 2016, declining to 433 in 2022. Section 1.18 expressly records that the populations of Ballinode,
Emyvale, Glaslough, Rockcorry and Threemilehouse fell between 2016 and 2022.
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This is the essential planning objection to the present proposal. The Development Plan directs that
housing which is not the subject of a demonstrated rural-generated need should be located in
settlements such as Ballinode, where it would support the village’s school, shops, services and
community infrastructure, and where it can connect to existing public wastewater and water services.
Permitting a further dwelling in the open countryside outside the village boundary, on an unserviced
site requiring a raised percolation mound, achieves precisely the opposite outcome: it draws population
away from a declining village while placing an additional and avoidable pressure on the receiving
environment.
4.3 The County already has a high level of open-countryside housing
Chapter 2 of the Development Plan records that between 2012 and 2022, 67.3% of all housing
permitted in County Monaghan comprised rural housing. Section 1.4 identifies as a key challenge for
the plan period that more growth took place in the rural areas of the County than in the urban areas
during the 2019–2025 plan period, and lists the promotion of the main urban centres as the principal
areas for population growth as the first of the County’s key challenges.
In its statutory submission on the Draft Plan dated 14 November 2024, the Office of the Planning
Regulator observed that County Monaghan already has a high level of housing in the open countryside
relative to its towns and villages, and that the key challenge for the Planning Authority will be to deliver
and implement a plan that ensures growth takes place in a compact and sequential manner in towns
and villages.
A development plan is not an aspiration; it is the statutory expression of the proper planning and
sustainable development of the area. If the Core Strategy is to have practical effect during this plan
period, it must be applied at the level of the individual application.
5.0 Ground 2: Failure to Demonstrate Rural-Generated Housing Need
The Sustainable Rural Housing Guidelines for Planning Authorities (DEHLG, 2005), to which the Planning
Authority is required to have regard under Section 28 of the Act and which are expressly listed in the
Development Plan at Section 1.12, distinguish between rural-generated and urban-generated housing
need. The onus of demonstrating rural-generated need rests on the applicant. It is not for the Planning
Authority to supply that case, nor for third parties to disprove it.
Having examined the application documentation available for public inspection, the Observer submits
that the application does not discharge that onus, in that:
• [the application file contains no statement of local need, or contains only an unsupported
assertion of local connection unaccompanied by documentary evidence;]
• [no evidence has been submitted of the duration of the applicant’s residence in the immediate
rural area, whether by way of school records, electoral register entries, utility accounts or a
statutory declaration;]
• [no evidence has been submitted of an economic or occupational connection to the rural area
requiring residence at this specific location, such as employment in agriculture, horticulture,
forestry or another land-based rural activity.]
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The imposition of an occupancy condition cannot cure a failure to establish need at the point of
application. An occupancy condition regulates who may live in a dwelling once built; it does not answer
the prior question of whether the dwelling should be permitted in the open countryside at all.
If the Planning Authority considers the need case to be arguable, the Observer requests that a Further
Information request be issued under Article 33 of the Regulations requiring the applicant to
substantiate the claimed need by documentary evidence, and that any such response be re-advertised
under Article 35 so that third parties may comment upon it.
6.0 Ground 3: Site Suitability and On-Site Wastewater Treatment
6.1 The mounded percolation area is itself evidence of a constrained site
The public notice expressly proposes a mechanical effluent treatment system with a mounded / raised
percolation area. A raised or mounded percolation area is a remedial engineering response deployed
where a site cannot accommodate a conventional percolation area at natural ground level. It arises
where one or more of the following conditions obtains: insufficient depth of unsaturated subsoil above
bedrock or the water table; a seasonally high water table; percolation characteristics (T or P values)
outside the acceptable range; or insufficient site area.
The proposal for a mound is therefore not a neutral design choice. It is a disclosure by the applicant that
the site is constrained. The appropriate planning response to a site which cannot accept effluent by
conventional means is to question whether the site is suitable for a dwelling at all — particularly where,
as here, the settlement of Ballinode is served by a public wastewater treatment plant and the
Development Plan directs such housing into settlements in the first instance.
6.2 Deficiencies in the site characterisation evidence
Section 15.22.5 of the Development Plan requires that proposals for on-site wastewater treatment
systems be accompanied by a Site Characterisation Report prepared in accordance with the EPA Code
of Practice: Domestic Waste Water Treatment Systems (Population Equivalent ≤ 10), 2021, which is
expressly listed among the guidance documents to which the Plan has had regard at Section 1.12.
Section 15.22.6 addresses water protection. The Observer submits that the Site Characterisation Report
accompanying this application is deficient in the following respects.
• Timing of the water table assessment. The trial hole must be assessed during the period when
the water table is at its seasonal maximum. [The trial hole and percolation tests appear to have
been carried out in mid-August, outside the recommended winter period, and no evidence of
subsequent monitoring during the wet season has been submitted.] In a drumlin landscape of
low-permeability glacial till, tests carried out in dry conditions systematically overstate site
capacity.
• Depth of unsaturated subsoil. [The trial hole log records 1.1 m to the water table, which does
not demonstrate the minimum unsaturated depth required beneath the invert of the percolation
trenches under the Code of Practice.]
• Groundwater vulnerability and receiving environment. The Observer requests that the Planning
Authority satisfy itself, by reference to Map 8.1 (Sensitive Surface Waters) and Map 8.2 (Sensitive
Ground Water and Landfills) of the Development Plan and to the GSI groundwater vulnerability
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mapping, that the receiving groundwater body is capable of accepting this discharge without
deterioration in status.
• Separation distances. [The proposed percolation area does not appear to achieve the minimum
separation distances required by the Code of Practice from the site boundary, from the drainage
ditch along the eastern boundary, and from the water supply wells downhill of the site to the
south.] Where a raised system is proposed, the effective discharge point is elevated, and lateral
migration of partially treated effluent through the mound and along the till surface is a
foreseeable risk. The direction of that migration is towards the Observer’s property.
• Surface water and land drainage. [The site falls towards the Observer’s property], and no
assessment has been submitted of the interaction between the raised mound, existing field
drainage, and surface water flows onto adjoining lands.
6.3 Water Framework Directive and cumulative effects
The application site drains to the Monaghan Blackwater, a tributary of the River Corr and thence of the
Ulster Blackwater, which discharges to Lough Neagh. Section 8.1 of the Development Plan sets out the
Council’s obligations in respect of surface water quality, groundwater protection and the achievement
of water quality targets under the Water Framework Directive and the River Basin Management Plan.
The Planning Authority is obliged to satisfy itself that the proposed discharge will not cause or
contribute to a deterioration in the status of the receiving waterbody, and will not jeopardise the
achievement of good status, in accordance with Article 4 of the Water Framework Directive as
interpreted in Case C-461/13 Bund für Umwelt und Naturschutz Deutschland eV v Bundesrepublik
Deutschland. That assessment must take account of the cumulative effect of existing and permitted
domestic wastewater discharges in this townland and its immediate environs, and not of this discharge
in isolation.
7.0 Ground 4: The Site Does Not Have the Boundaries Required by the
Development Plan
This ground is, in the Observer’s respectful submission, the most straightforward on which
permission should be refused, because it turns on facts capable of objective verification rather than
on matters of planning judgement.
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7.1 The requirement
The relevant provisions are Section 15.9.1 ‘Rural Character’, Section 15.9.2 ‘Site Selection and Design
Guidelines’, Policy RCP 1, Policy RSDP 1 and Table 15.3 ‘Guidelines for Siting and Designing a Rural
House in the Vernacular Style’.
Table 15.3 requires that a site use clearly identifiable and established boundaries, such as trees, slopes
or other natural features, which separate the site from the surrounding countryside and offer a suitable
degree of enclosure. It further requires that, in addition to the roadside boundary, the site have a
minimum of one natural existing boundary to soften the impact of the development in the landscape.
The purpose of the requirement is well understood and is applied consistently by this Planning
Authority: a dwelling in the open countryside must be capable of being assimilated into its landscape
setting from the date it is built, and not at some indeterminate future point when newly planted whips
have reached maturity. Proposed planting is not a substitute for existing mature boundaries, because it
provides no screening during the very period when raw earthworks, an exposed dwelling and, in this
case, a raised percolation mound are at their most visually intrusive.
The Planning Authority has refused permission for rural dwellings on precisely this ground. In its
decision on Reg. Ref. 25/60423 (Drumillard, Shantonagh, Castleblayney, refused 4 December 2025) the
Authority refused permission by express reference to Policy RCP 1, Section 15.9.1, Section 15.9.2, Policy
RSDP 1 and Table 15.3, on the basis that the site lacked mature, clearly identifiable boundaries, that a
former mature roadside boundary had been replaced with concrete posts and wire, and that the
application was premature pending the maturing of recent planting and the submission of a
comprehensive landscape plan. Consistency of decision-making is itself a material consideration, and
the Observer submits that there is no distinguishing feature of this application which would justify a
departure from that approach.
7.2 The boundaries of this site
The Observer sets out the position on each boundary of the application site as follows.
• Northern boundary (shared with the Observer). A mature hedgerow exists along part of this
boundary, but it is not within the ownership or control of the applicant. It stands on lands in the
ownership of the Observer. See Section 7.3 below. A further length of this boundary was
removed by the applicant in 2025. See Section 7.4 below.
• Eastern boundary. No established mature boundary at present.
• Southern boundary. No established mature boundary at present.
• Western / roadside boundary. A roadside hedgerow and bank exist, but a substantial length of it
must be removed or set back in order to achieve the visibility splays discussed at Section 8.0
below. It cannot therefore be relied upon as a retained boundary.
On any analysis, therefore, the site does not satisfy the requirement in Table 15.3 for a roadside
boundary together with a minimum of one further natural existing boundary within the applicant’s
ownership or control. The application is deficient on the face of it.
7.3 The northern hedgerow is not in the applicant’s ownership or control
The mature hedgerow along the northern boundary, between the application site and the Observer’s
dwelling, is not owned by the applicant and is not within his control. It stands on lands in the ownership
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of the Observer, as recorded in the folio filed plan for the property. Following the removal of hedgerow
described at Section 7.4 below, the Observer had the boundary surveyed, and that survey confirms that
the boundary in question is not in the applicant’s ownership. The pegged-out legal boundary is shown in
the photographic record at Appendix 3.
Several consequences follow, each of which is fatal to any reliance the applicant may place upon that
hedgerow.
• Article 22(2)(g) of the Planning and Development Regulations 2001 (as amended) requires an
applicant who is not the owner of land to which an application relates to submit the written
consent of the owner. No such consent has been sought from, or given by, the Observer, and
none has been submitted with the application.
• The applicant has no legal ability to retain, maintain, manage or protect this hedgerow. He
cannot enter the Observer’s lands to do so.
• Correspondingly, the Observer is under no obligation, now or in the future, to maintain a
hedgerow in perpetuity for the benefit of the applicant’s development, and may lawfully manage,
reduce or remove that hedgerow at any time.
• It follows that any condition attached to a permission requiring the retention of that hedgerow
would be unenforceable against the applicant, and would be an impermissible attempt to
regulate the use of third-party land. A planning authority should not grant a permission whose
acceptability depends upon a condition it cannot enforce.
The Observer accordingly submits that, for the purposes of assessing this application, the northern
boundary must be treated as though the hedgerow were not there at all. Once that is done, the site
plainly fails the requirement in Table 15.3.
7.4 Removal of the pre-existing boundary in 2025
A mature hedgerow previously existed along the boundary between the application site and the
Observer’s property. That hedgerow was removed during 2025, prior to the lodgement of this
application. The Observer relies upon the dated aerial imagery and photographs enclosed at Appendix
4, which show the hedgerow in place and subsequently absent.
The Observer submits that this is material to the determination of the application in three distinct
respects.
First, as a matter of principle, an applicant should not derive planning advantage from the removal of
the very site features by reference to which the suitability of the site would otherwise have been
assessed. If the site is assessed in its cleared condition, the clearance is rewarded and the requirement
in Section 15.9.2 and Table 15.3 is rendered meaningless: any constrained site could be made to appear
compliant, or its non-compliance concealed, simply by clearing the evidence in advance. The Planning
Authority should assess this site by reference to its condition as it stood prior to the clearance, and
should in any event have regard to the fact that the applicant has already demonstrated a willingness to
remove mature boundary vegetation on this site.
Second, the removal is directly relevant to the credibility of any landscaping proposals now put forward.
An applicant who removed established hedgerow in 2025 and now proposes replacement planting as
mitigation is offering the Planning Authority, at best, a return to the position which obtained before he
acted, after a delay of many years while the planting establishes.
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Third, the Observer requests that the Planning Authority satisfy itself as to the circumstances and timing
of the removal, including whether it was carried out during the period from 1 March to 31 August, when
the cutting, grubbing, burning or other destruction of vegetation growing in a hedge is prohibited by
Section 40 of the Wildlife Act 1976 as amended by the Wildlife (Amendment) Act 2000 and the Heritage
Act 2018, and whether it constituted development for which permission was required. The Observer
raises this as a matter for the Planning Authority’s investigation and makes no assertion as to the
applicant’s intention.
The Observer requests that the applicant be required, by way of Further Information, to state the date
and full extent of all vegetation removed from the application site and from its boundaries within the
preceding three years, and to identify on a drawing the boundaries as they existed prior to that
removal.
8.0 Ground 5: Site Access, Sight Distances and Traffic Hazard
The application proposes a new site entrance onto the public roadway. Section 15.22.3 of the
Development Plan sets standards for all rural accesses, and Section 15.23 sets out road access
standards, including the minimum visibility standards at Section 15.23.2 and Table 15.4, the visibility
splay diagram at Figure 15.2, visibility arrangements at the access at Section 15.23.4, forward and rear
visibility on the priority road at Section 15.23.5, the envelope of visibility for non-urban roads at Figure
15.5, and the location of accesses at Section 15.23.7.
8.1 The visibility splays as drawn are not constructed in accordance with the Development
Plan
The splays shown on the submitted site layout drawing are drawn in a manner which does not accord
with the Development Plan and which materially overstates the sight distance available.
The visibility splay lines are drawn from the set-back point at the proposed entrance to points which
terminate on the far side of the carriageway. That is not the geometry required by Figure 15.2 and
Figure 15.5 of the Development Plan, which require the splay to be terminated at the nearside
carriageway edge or at the specified offset.
The consequence is not trivial. Terminating the splay at the far side of the road:
• assumes a target position which an approaching vehicle travelling lawfully on its own side of the
road would never occupy, and therefore measures a sight line of no value to a driver emerging
from the entrance;
• swings the splay line further out from the roadside boundary, so that the line clears the nearside
hedge, bank or boundary which in reality intersects the true splay. The obstruction is engineered
off the drawing rather than off the site;
• carries the splay across land on the opposite side of the public road which is in third-party
ownership. No consent from that landowner has been submitted, and the applicant is in no
position to secure or maintain visibility over it.
When the splays are correctly constructed in accordance with Figure 15.2 of the Development Plan, the
available visibility reduces to approximately [50] m to the north and approximately [50] m to the south.
A levelled survey drawing demonstrating the correctly constructed splays is enclosed at Appendix 5. The
Observer notes that the corrected splays traverse his property.
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The Observer respectfully submits that a drawing which does not comply with the Plan’s own visibility
diagram cannot form the basis of a grant of permission, and that the Planning Authority should not
accept the sight distances asserted without an independent, levelled survey.
8.2 Splays outside the applicant’s control
Even on the applicant’s own geometry, the visibility splays as drawn extend over roadside boundaries
and lands which are not in the applicant’s ownership or control, including the Observer’s roadside
frontage to the north. No letter of consent under Article 22(2)(g) has been submitted. The applicant is
accordingly not in a position to deliver the visibility required, and a condition requiring it would be
unenforceable. Section 15.23.1 of the Development Plan requires an applicant to demonstrate control,
or the reasonable prospect of acquiring control, of any land required for the provision of an access or
visibility splays.
8.3 Road geometry, hedgerow loss and existing hazards
The proposed entrance is located on the inside of a bend and within 50 m of the existing entrances
serving the Observer’s property and other properties, and would give rise to conflicting turning
movements at a point where forward visibility is already restricted.
Achieving even the splays as drawn would necessitate the removal or setting back of approximately
[100] linear metres of roadside hedgerow and associated bank. Section 6.15 of the Development Plan
addresses the protection of trees, hedgerows and woodlands. Having regard to the removal of
hedgerow already carried out on this site in 2025 as described at Section 7.4 above, the cumulative loss
of hedgerow attributable to this development is substantial and has not been quantified anywhere in
the application.
Development which endangers public safety by reason of traffic hazard is a standard and sufficient
ground for refusal, and the burden of demonstrating that the access is safe rests with the applicant.
9.0 Ground 6: Ribbon Development
Section 15.9.6 of the Development Plan addresses ribbon development and infill development in the
rural area. The Sustainable Rural Housing Guidelines for Planning Authorities (DEHLG, 2005), at
Appendix 4, define ribbon development as arising where five or more houses exist on any one side of a
given 250 m of road frontage, and direct planning authorities to assess whether a given proposal would
create or exacerbate such development, including whether distinct areas of ribbon development would
coalesce as a result.
[The Observer submits that there are currently […] dwellings on this side of the public road within 250
m of the application site, identified on the annotated map at Appendix 1. The proposed dwelling would
be the [fifth], and would accordingly create ribbon development within the meaning of the Guidelines
and Section 15.9.6 of the Development Plan.]
The Observer further submits that the proposal would fill a remaining gap in the built frontage along
this stretch of road, and that the Development Plan does not normally permit the infilling of gaps
between houses in the rural area. The result would be the further erosion of the rural character of this
road, the loss of visual separation between the open countryside and the village of Ballinode, and the
incremental urbanisation of the approach to the village.
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10.0 Ground 7: Design, Levels and the Adequacy of the Submitted Drawings
Policy RCP 1 and Section 15.9.1 of the Development Plan require that a proposal for a dwelling in the
rural area should not be unduly prominent in the landscape. Section 15.9.2, Policy RSDP 1 and Table
15.3 set out the site selection and design standards against which the design of a rural dwelling falls to
be assessed. Table 15.3 is not advisory background material; it is the standard by which this Authority
assesses rural dwellings, and the onus of demonstrating compliance rests on the applicant.
The Observer acknowledges that the proposed dwelling is modest in scale. Drawing No. 2025-06-26
shows a single-storey dwelling of 67.5 sq m internal floor area, measuring approximately 12.9 m by 5.8
m overall, with an overall height to ridge of 5.005 m, a Baumit render external finish and a black or grey
slate or tile roof. The Observer’s objection under this ground is accordingly directed not at the scale or
massing of the building, but at the absence of the information necessary to assess it against Table 15.3,
at specific departures from the vernacular detailing which that Table requires, and at a material internal
inconsistency in the drawings.
10.1 No contextual analysis or design statement has been submitted
Compliance with Table 15.3 cannot be assessed in the abstract. It requires the applicant to identify the
characteristics of the traditional and existing building stock in the locality — its scale, form, proportions,
materials and detailing — and then to demonstrate how the proposed dwelling responds to them. No
such exercise has been carried out. The application is not accompanied by:
• a design statement or character appraisal identifying the scale, form, proportion, materials and
detailing of the existing dwellings in the immediate vicinity;
• a contiguous or comparative elevation showing the proposed dwelling alongside the
neighbouring dwellings to a common scale and a common datum;
• a photomontage or verified view of the proposed dwelling from the public road, from the
approach to Ballinode village, or from the Observer’s property;
• a long section through the site showing the proposed dwelling and the proposed percolation
mound in the context of the existing and proposed landform.
The dwellings in the immediate vicinity are of one-and-a-half and two storey form. [The Observer
identifies the following: (i) [address] – two storey; (ii) [address] – one-and-a-half storey. These are
shown on the annotated map at Appendix 1.] In the absence of any contextual analysis, the Planning
Authority is being asked to accept, without evidence, that a dwelling of this design belongs in this place.
10.2 Fenestration and the principal elevation
Table 15.3 addresses the proportions of the building and of its openings, and requires windows of
vertical emphasis arranged in a simple and regular rhythm, with a substantially greater area of solid wall
than of opening.
The windows shown on the submitted elevations are of horizontal rather than vertical proportion. Read
against the dimensions on Section A-A, the principal windows have a head height of 2,100 mm and a sill
height of 1,050 mm, giving an opening height of the order of 1,050 mm against widths of 1,200 mm and
greater. The window to the left of the front elevation is a wide two-leaf opening of markedly horizontal
proportion.
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This is the same defect for which the Planning Authority refused permission under Reg. Ref. 25/60423,
where non-compliance with Policy RSDP 1 and Table 15.3 was found by reason, among other matters,
of side elevation windows which did not have vertical emphasis.
10.3 Chimney, eaves and verge detailing
Table 15.3 addresses detailing, which in the rural context carries as much weight as scale and form. The
Observer draws attention to two matters apparent from the elevations:
• no chimney stack is shown on any elevation. A chimney stack to the gable is among the defining
characteristics of the vernacular dwelling which Table 15.3 requires the design to follow, and its
absence leaves the roof as an uninterrupted plane;
• the verge and eaves are shown as projecting overhangs rather than the close or clipped verge
characteristic of the traditional building stock of the drumlin landscape.
10.4 Internal inconsistency in the drawings: external wall build-up
The general construction notes on Drawing No. 2025-06-26 specify external cavity walls constructed of
dense concrete blockwork with a 100 mm cavity containing blown bonded bead insulation, which
produces an overall external wall thickness in the order of 300 mm before internal and external finishes.
The ground floor plan, however, is not drawn to that build-up. The stated internal floor area of 67.5 sq
m is consistent with overall external dimensions of 12.9 m by 5.8 m and an external wall thickness of
the order of 200 mm. The drawings are therefore internally inconsistent: the plan as drawn cannot be
constructed in the manner the specification notes require.
The Observer raises this not as a Building Regulations matter, the Building Regulations being a separate
statutory code, but because it goes to two questions squarely within the Planning Authority’s remit:
• the accuracy of the drawings on which the application falls to be determined. If the specified
wall build-up is adopted, the external envelope, the floor area and the elevations will all differ
from those drawn.
• the appearance of the building as it would actually be constructed. Wall thickness determines
the depth of window and door reveals, the depth of eaves and verge, the modelling of light and
shadow across an elevation, and the perceived solidity of the wall plane. Deep reveals and a
perceptible wall mass are among the defining characteristics of the vernacular dwelling described
in Table 15.3.
The Observer requests that the applicant be required, by way of Further Information, to confirm the
form of construction proposed and to submit a typical external wall section at a scale of not less than
1:20 showing the full build-up of the wall, the wall head and eaves, the verge and a typical window
reveal, together with corrected plans and elevations where necessary.
10.5 Finishes and boundary treatment
The elevations identify only a Baumit render external finish and black or grey slates or tiles to the roof.
The Observer does not object to that palette in principle, but the following remain unspecified and
should be confirmed and, where necessary, controlled by condition: the texture and colour of the
render; the specific roof covering and its profile; the material, colour, frame section and opening
arrangement of windows and external doors; the material and profile of rainwater goods and fascia; the
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eaves and verge detail; and the boundary treatment, entrance piers, gates and hard surfacing within the
site.
10.6 Site levels, cut and fill
The drawings do not show existing and proposed ground levels, the extent of cut and fill required to
form the dwelling platform, driveway and percolation mound, or the location of spoil disposal. On a
sloping drumlin site this information is essential to any meaningful assessment of visual impact and of
the interaction between the development and the Observer’s property.
The Observer further requests that the Planning Authority verify the set-back of the proposed dwelling
from the near edge of the surfaced carriageway against Policy BLP 1 and Section 15.27 ‘Building Lines’
of the Development Plan, having regard to the classification of this road, and verify whether the site or
its immediate setting is affected by any designation shown on Map 6.1 (Development Constraints),
including any Area of Primary or Secondary Amenity Value or Scenic Route listed at Tables 6.5 and 6.6
and Section 6.11.3.
10.7 The raised percolation mound as a landscape feature
A mounded percolation area is a substantial engineered earthwork. Placed on a sloping drumlin site in
an area of open pasture, it reads as a geometric feature at odds with the rolling natural landform. No
cross-sections, spot levels or long sections through the proposed mound appear to have been
submitted, and the finished levels, side slopes, extent of imported fill and proposed finish of the mound
cannot be assessed from the drawings on file. This is a material deficiency in the application, and one
compounded by the absence of any retained mature boundary capable of screening the mound, as set
out at Section 7.0 above.
11.0 Ground 8: Ecology, Biodiversity and Appropriate Assessment
Section 6.2 of the Development Plan addresses the protection of biodiversity including the Natura 2000
network, Section 6.7 addresses Natura 2000 sites and Appropriate Assessment, and Section 6.15
addresses trees, hedgerows and woodlands. Section 1.4 commits the Council to implementing the
Habitats Directive and recognises that projects which may have an adverse impact on designated sites
will not be permitted save for imperative reasons of overriding public interest.
The application site lies within the Ulster Blackwater catchment, which is transboundary and discharges
to Lough Neagh, a site of European importance in Northern Ireland. Slieve Beagh Special Protection
Area and Esbrack Bog Natural Heritage Area lie approximately 8 km from Ballinode village.
The Observer submits that:
• [no Appropriate Assessment Screening Report has been submitted with the application,
notwithstanding that the development involves a new discharge to groundwater in a
hydrologically connected transboundary catchment;]
• no Ecological Impact Assessment or habitat survey has been submitted, notwithstanding the
hedgerow already removed from the site in 2025, the further roadside hedgerow removal
required to form the entrance and visibility splays, and the placement of a substantial earthwork
mound on [semi-natural grassland / wet grassland / a field margin]. Hedgerows are a habitat of
recognised ecological importance and function as wildlife corridors within an intensively farmed
drumlin landscape;
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• the Observer requests that the Planning Authority verify, by reference to Map 8.3 (Areas of
Natural Vegetation, Wetlands and Wet Soils), whether the mounded percolation area is proposed
on lands identified on that map, and if so the implications of that for both site suitability and
biodiversity.
The Planning Authority, as competent authority, cannot lawfully grant permission unless it has first
ascertained, on the basis of complete, precise and definitive findings, that the development will not
adversely affect the integrity of any European site. The absence of the information necessary to reach
that conclusion is itself a reason to refuse or, at minimum, to seek further information.
12.0 Ground 9: Precedent and Cumulative Effect
Figure 2.6 of the Development Plan maps planning applications for single rural houses received per
townland over the period 2013–2024, precisely because the Council recognises that the cumulative
pattern of one-off housing, rather than any individual dwelling, determines whether the Core Strategy
succeeds or fails.
A grant of permission in this instance — on a site which does not satisfy the boundary requirement in
Table 15.3, which requires a raised percolation mound, which relies on a hedgerow the applicant does
not own, and on which existing hedgerow has already been removed — would establish a precedent
the Planning Authority would find difficult to resist in respect of the surrounding land holdings. It would
also signal that the boundary requirement in Section 15.9.2 and Table 15.3 can be circumvented by
clearing a site in advance of application, which would be corrosive of the Plan as a whole.
[The Observer refers the Planning Authority to its own recent decisions in the North Monaghan area,
including Reg. Ref. […], in which permission was refused on comparable grounds.]
13.0 Conclusion and Request
The Observer respectfully submits that the proposed development:
• would materially contravene the Core Strategy and Rural Settlement Strategy of the Monaghan
County Development Plan 2025–2031, and would be contrary to National Policy Objective 19 of
the National Planning Framework;
• is not supported by any demonstrated rural-generated housing need;
• has not been shown to be capable of safely and sustainably treating and disposing of domestic
effluent, and would pose an unacceptable risk to groundwater and to the Observer’s private
water supply;
• is on a site which does not possess the boundaries required by Section 15.9.2 and Table 15.3 of
the Development Plan, the roadside boundary being required to be removed for visibility
purposes, the only other mature boundary being outside the applicant’s ownership and control,
and a further boundary having been removed by the applicant in 2025;
• is supported by visibility splay drawings which are not constructed in accordance with the
Development Plan and which materially overstate the sight distance available, such that the
entrance would endanger public safety by reason of traffic hazard;
• would contribute to ribbon development and the urbanisation of the rural approach to Ballinode
village;
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• is not supported by the design, levels and finishes information necessary to demonstrate
compliance with Policy RCP 1, Policy RSDP 1, Sections 15.9.1 and 15.9.2 and Table 15.3 of the
Development Plan, and is drawn to an external wall build-up inconsistent with its own
specification;
• is unaccompanied by the ecological information necessary for the Planning Authority to discharge
its statutory obligations; and
• would set an undesirable precedent for similar development in the vicinity.
Accordingly, the proposed development would be contrary to the proper planning and sustainable
development of the area, and the Observer respectfully requests that permission be REFUSED.
In the alternative, and strictly without prejudice to the foregoing, the Observer requests that the
Planning Authority issue a request for Further Information under Article 33 of the Planning and
Development Regulations 2001 (as amended) requiring the applicant to address each of the deficiencies
identified above — and in particular to submit a levelled visibility survey, a statement of the date and
extent of all boundary vegetation removed from the site, evidence of ownership or written consent in
respect of every boundary relied upon, and a corrected set of plans and elevations — and that any such
response be re-advertised in accordance with Article 35 so that the Observer may comment upon it.
The Observer requests to be notified of the decision of the Planning Authority in accordance with
Section 34(1) of the Act, and reserves the right to appeal any decision to An Coimisiún Pleanála.
Signed:
Aidan Sherlock
Aidan Sherlock & Associates Ltd
Dawson Street, Monaghan, H18 A257
on behalf of Ronan Daly
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Enclosures
Appendix 1 – Site location map showing the application site, the Observer’s property, the shared
boundary, and the location and storey height of dwellings in the vicinity.
Appendix 2 – Photographic record of the site and its setting, with viewpoint locations annotated on a
map.
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Appendix 3 – Photographic record of the pegged-out legal boundary, establishing the Observer’s
ownership of the northern boundary hedgerow.
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Appendix 4 – Dated imagery and photographs evidencing the hedge prior the hedgerow removal
carried out in 2025.
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