AS the furore over the proposed reforms of Britain’s planning laws becomes increasingly vociferous, Ireland offers a sad and salutary lesson in what not to do; its liberal planning legislation has led to a despoiling of the countryside with consequences that will take years to unravel.  It was Éamon de Valera’s dotty vision, in 1943, that Ireland would have a countryside “bright with cosy homesteads”. But now it is littered with them. In Kerry, “one-off houses” account for more than half of the county’s total housing stock and average out at one unit per kilometre of public road. That’s an awful lot of buildings strewn around the landscape of a county so heavily dependent on tourism, and which was recently voted the “most scenic” in Ireland.  “Eighty per cent of the visitors to Co Kerry come here for the quality of the landscape and the unspoilt scenery,” senior Kerry planner Paul Stack said recently. “I drove around areas such as the Cotswolds and to see the tourism product they have in comparison to what we have done to ours is embarrassing and upsetting.”  That’s the real difference between Ireland and Britain. When one flies from Dublin to London, the most striking feature of the landscape is the clear distinction between built-up areas and the countryside. The same is true of Scotland, where the Highlands remain sublime, probably because of clearances in the 18th century.  In Ireland, however, land reforms of the late 19th century, fought for by the Irish Land League, resulted in breaking up the great estates and redistributing the land to tenant farmers. And many of their descendants believe they have the right to sell off half-acre plots on road frontages for urban-generated rural housing.  The knock-on effects of liberal planning policies over several decades, codified by the Sustainable Rural Housing Guidelines (2005), have been ruinous not just for the countryside, but also for towns and villages; as residential development spreads outwards, many are losing population rather than being reinforced. The British Coalition’s “presumption in favour of sustainable development” could be similarly devastating.  This imbalance in Ireland became even more pronounced during the “Celtic Tiger” boom, with suburban-style housing estates being tacked on to towns and villages as well as being built in the middle of nowhere, as more and more land was re-zoned for residential development – at the behest of farmers and other landowners greedy for rich pickings.  The farmers also did very well from selling off land, at hugely inflated prices, for inter-urban motorways that became the sinews of sprawl because they enabled so many people to live in rural areas and commute to work by car. Notoriously, Dublin’s commuter belt now extends to 100 kilometres – roughly on a par with Los Angeles.  Eventually, housing output reached a peak of 90,000 new homes per year – far more than Britain’s, despite the huge difference in population (4.5 million versus 60 million). Local councils also behaved recklessly by zoning more than 105,600 acres for residential development between 2000 and 2010 – enough to accommodate 1.5 million new houses or apartments. It transpired that only 29,660 acres were needed to meet demand throughout the republic over the decade.  By the time Ireland’s property bubble burst in 2008, we were left not only with inappropriately located housing – the antithesis of sustainable development – but also “ghost estates” of unfinished houses that were simply abandoned by cash-strapped developers after the casino banking culture finally imploded.  The number of “ghost estates” has hit 2,881, containing 179,900 houses in varying stages of completion. Some 230 unfinished schemes have benefited from a €5 million (£4.3 million) fund to address immediate safety concerns; but, obviously, the backlog will take years to clear.  Meanwhile, the peak-to-trough fall in house prices – 65 to 70 per cent, by the time it finally “bottoms out” – means that Ireland is experiencing the worst property crash globally since the end of the Second World War.  Only now has the penny dropped. Local councils, even in Kerry, are “de-zoning” thousands of acres that had been designated for development during the boom. The rip-roaring era is over and there’s now time to reflect on the mess we’ve made of our once beautiful country. Britain would do well to reflect on it, too.  Frank McDonald is Environment Editor of the 'Irish Times’
The mistakes made by Irish housing planners should be a lesson to those    seeking to build in rural areas of Britain.