Building a house in County Sligo: urban influence around Sligo town, five need categories and the €20 per square metre charge

Who decides, and how to apply

Sligo County Council decides applications for the county. Its planning pages explain how to apply and let you search applications already made, which is a quick way to see how the council has treated sites near yours. The plan is the Sligo County Development Plan 2024-2030, made on 30 September 2024 and in effect from 11 November 2024. The rural housing policy is in chapter 5 of Volume 1, and the detailed standards for assessing a house are in chapter 33 of Volume 3. The council has varied the plan once already, so check the current text before you buy a site.

Read how a one-off house application works first.

Two rural area types, plus green belts

The plan keeps the rural area definitions from the 2005, 2011 and 2017 plans, which it says match the national framework:

• Rural Areas under Urban Influence (RAUI) are in the commuter catchment of Sligo town, which extends north and east to the Leitrim boundary and south and west for at least 15 to 18 km. The aim is to direct new housing into the town and villages while accommodating people with a genuine need to live in the countryside.
• Remote Rural Areas (RRA) are the rest of the county, mainly the west and south, with fewer settlements, a weaker economy and continuing outmigration. The aim here is to retain population. Policy SP-S-11 accommodates one-off houses subject to normal planning considerations, with no need test.
• Green Belts and sensitive areas are drawn around towns and villages and along scenic routes, in sensitive rural landscapes and visually vulnerable areas. They have tighter rules wherever they fall.

The housing need test in the urban influence area

Policy SP-S-10 accommodates one-off houses in the RAUI where need is shown by one of five categories of applicant:

1. Landowners and farmers, including their sons and daughters, wanting a first home on the landholding associated with their principal family residence.
2. People whose main work is rural based, such as agriculture, aquaculture, forestry or horticulture, with a genuine need to live near it.
3. People with no family lands who want to build a first home near their original family home, in the rural community where they spent a substantial and continuous part of their lives.
4. People with a link to the community because they lived there for a substantial and continuous part of their lives, or have long-established ties with immediate family there.
5. People who must live in a rural area for exceptional reasons, including health, with a specialist’s report and where applicable the backing of a disability organisation.

In every case you must also show the house is in the interest of proper planning and sustainable development. The policy does not apply to sites inside village development limits. In Green Belts and sensitive areas, policy SP-S-12 allows only the first two categories.

To prove need, Volume 3 asks for a signed statement of your current and past housing circumstances, land registry documents for the site, a map showing the family home, proof of your link to the community including time in any rented property there, and anything else agreed at pre-planning. See rural housing and local need for how to assemble the evidence.

Siting and design

All applications are assessed on normal planning considerations: the core and settlement strategy, archaeology, sensitive landscapes and scenic routes, exposed locations, ribbon development, road entrances and sight lines, hedgerow loss, wastewater, surface water and neighbours’ amenity. The council wants houses to nestle into the site, preferably clustered with existing buildings, infilling or rounding off scattered development, and not to break the skyline. It accepts traditional or high-quality contemporary design, but not suburban-style houses. Every single rural house application except outline permission needs a Design Statement.

The development charge

Sligo’s Development Contribution Scheme 2018-2024 sets residential charges by house size: €18 per square metre up to 150, €20 for 151 to 200, €25 for 201 to 300 and €28 above 300. The table does not say whether the rate covers the whole house or only the floor area in the band. We read it as the whole floor area, so a 200 square metre house pays €4,000. The scheme period has ended and the council’s page does not show a replacement, so ask which scheme applies to your application.

The scheme indexes the rates each 1 January using the CSO wholesale price index, so today’s charge can be higher. Extensions are charged €20 per square metre over 150 square metres of the original house. Retention permissions pay double with no exemptions. The national waiver covered only homes started on site between 25 April 2023 and 31 December 2024, so a house starting now cannot qualify. See the waiver guide.

To see how Sligo’s charge compares, the development contributions table compares the charge for a 200 square metre house across all 31 councils.

Wastewater and site suitability

Almost every rural house treats its own wastewater, and the council looks at effluent, surface water and water supply as part of its normal considerations. A site that fails the test will fail the application whatever your local need. Read site suitability assessments and wastewater treatment systems before you pay for the test.