Tougher laws might save our rural landscape

OVER the past 40 years, because of our inadequate planning laws, much of our once beautiful countryside has been ruined by ribbon development.

‘Bungalow blight’ and ’mansion mania’ have now become the dominant features of the rural landscape. Much of our countryside is a sprawling, badly planned suburb, with many coastal areas now regarded as planning write-offs.

One-off housing in the countryside is a potential time-bomb with enormous social, economic and environmental consequences Surveys have shown that rural Irish children are now the most unfit in Europe and that Irish people spend more time commuting than other Europeans. Our scattered pattern of housing has produced a largely unhealthy and car-bound population.