Building a house in County Westmeath: strong urban influence, structurally weak areas and the €3,000 charge

Who decides, and how to apply

Westmeath 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 rural housing rules are in chapter 9 of the Westmeath County Development Plan 2021-2027, with the area types set out in section 2.14 of the core strategy. The plan can be varied, so check the current text before you buy a site.

Read how a one-off house application works first. Design standards are in chapter 16 of the plan and in the Westmeath Rural Design Guidelines (2005), which objective CPO 9.21 commits the council to review.

Two kinds of rural area

Westmeath treats its countryside in two ways, shown on the Rural Typology Map (Map 9.1):

• Rural Area Under Strong Urban Influence covers most of the county. The plan describes stable population, a strong agricultural base and well-developed towns and villages, and it lies in the commuter catchment of Athlone, Mullingar and Dublin. Here the council permits a house for people with strong links to the area who are an intrinsic part of the rural community.
• Structurally Weak Areas are concentrated in the north and west, where population has declined. Objective CPO 9.3 accommodates housing demand from individuals for permanent residential development “subject to good planning practice”, and no local housing need applies. The plan still asks the council to tell speculative building from a genuine long-term commitment to the area.

The local housing need test

In the strong urban influence area, objective CPO 9.1 permits a house in these circumstances:

1. You are actively engaged in agriculture, horticulture, forestry, bloodstock or the peat industry.
2. You are a member of a farm family who wants to build on the family farm.
3. You are a landowner, meaning you owned the land for 5 years before the date of the application.
4. You are employed locally in work that provides a service to the local community.
5. You have personal, family or economic ties to the area, including returning emigrants.
6. You want to return to farming and have bought or inherited a substantial farm holding that is kept intact as a farm unit. The council treats you as a farmer, and where there is already a house on the holding, refurbishment or replacement is preferred.

The “local area” is generally within a 10 km radius of your family home. The core strategy lists the kind of people it has in mind: farmers and their sons and daughters, people from the area who want to return, people who want to live near elderly parents, and people working locally such as rural teachers. The aim, the plan says, is to support those with strong rural links and steer people with none towards towns, villages and rural nodes. For general advice on evidence, see rural housing and local need.

Rural nodes

The plan identifies small, generally unserviced settlements called rural nodes (maps 55 to 59 in Volume 2). They exist partly to cater for one-off housing demand from people who do not meet the local need criteria. Inside a node’s development limits, objective CPO 9.4 permits infill, conversion, single houses and use of derelict or underused land, subject to siting, design and residential amenity. Under CPO 9.5, a proposal in a node needs a hydrologist’s assessment showing its septic tank outfall will not, with others nearby, stop a water body reaching good status.

Siting, access and sensitive areas

The council prefers clustering, especially for houses on the same landholding or for the same family, with shared accesses, and it resists ribbon development on approaches to its towns (CPO 9.14 and 9.15). It generally resists new accesses for single houses onto regional roads in the 80 km/h zone and onto national roads (CPO 9.16 and 9.22). Existing hedgerows and trees should be kept where practicable, and replacements should be native species (CPO 9.18).

The plan also protects the catchments of Lough Owel and Lough Lene, which supply public water. A development there will not be permitted if it could pollute the source, and applications in other areas near spawning streams may be sent to Inland Fisheries Ireland.

The development charge

Westmeath County Council’s Development Contribution Scheme 2022 charges residential units by size: €2,000 under 90 square metres, €3,000 from 90 to 200 square metres, and €3,500 plus €25 per square metre above 200. A 200 square metre house therefore pays €3,000. The council adjusts the rates each 1 January using the CSO wholesale price index for building and construction, so the amount on your permission can be higher than the scheme’s figure.

Retention permissions pay 1.25 times the rate with no exemptions. Extensions are charged €20 per square metre, but only where they add more than 40 square metres in total. 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 Westmeath’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 plan directs rural housing to land where acceptable treatment and disposal can be provided, avoiding high water tables, flooding and impeded drainage. Read site suitability assessments and wastewater treatment systems before you pay for the test.