Six-point plan to end the rural housing sprawl

I WOULD like to put some ideas forward regarding the housing sprawl that some people call rural regeneration. We are creating a visual mess in the approach roads to our towns and villages. It is also creating social and cultural problems. There is little or no social cohesion or sense of community involved in building one house after another along the roadside.

There also tends to be a hollowing-out of families living in streets in small towns and villages as people move to the outskirts. This has a deadening effect on social life. It creates more traffic congestion, noise pollution and a worsening of health and quality of life. For instance, how many people do you see cycling any more? A walk in the countryside is not as pleasant as it used to be because ribbon development generates more and more traffic.

I would recommend the following points as a start for a landscape policy.

1. We should look at landscape as whole and not as a series of sites.

2. We should end the stipulation that hedgerows be knocked down and moved backwards.

3. Farm villages/clacháns should be identified and people encouraged to build within them.

4. New streets connecting up to each other cohesively should be built in our towns rather than the isolated estates so common nowadays.

5. The dominant rights of motorcars should be reduced.

6. The habit of building houses strung out along the roadside should end.

The few belated restrictions that the planners are proposing should be welcomed. At least they may give us some breathing space until the concept of a landscape policy takes root.

A well-managed landscape is of vital strategic significance for our economic and environmental wellbeing.

Sean Brosnan,

Leac a Re,

Dingle,

Co Kerry.