Planning and community

Sir, – Far be it from me to question the accuracy of Brian Fallon's assessment (Letters, May 10th) of the motives of the "concerned citizens who object to large-scale and possibly fast-tracked planning applications" and their concern that such developments may be purchased by funds and will leave some people in the community perpetually renting, a development which would prevent "the establishment of the desired neighbourly community".

While he may be quite right to identify these convictions among objectors, one is left with the sense that any such principled objection to the rental market and transient tenants is of remarkably little help to the increasing number of people who rely on the rental market for a place to live. Those who are concerned about a rental market that “by its very nature is transient” should be advised that it need not be so. Their objections might be more effectively channelled towards lobbying for legislation that gives greater security of tenure for tenants, particularly for those whose landlords are the large institutional investors to which your correspondent refers, rather than preventing the speedy development of the higher-density housing that Dublin has delayed building for decades. – Yours, etc,

CHRISTOPHER

McMAHON,

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Oxford,

United Kingdom.