Take the spat out of spatial - Village Magazine

5 2 Nov/Dec 2016

TRATEGIC SPATIAL planning determines where

development should take place in Ireland. It

can improve the quality of life, improve soci

ety and the environment and underpin the

delivery of effective public services and the

capacity for economic growth at national, regional and

subregional levels. In other words it decides where we

live, work and play - and so crystallises much about our

way of life. Because of demographics and development

-pressure spatial planning, or the lack of it, is setting in

concrete our living conditions for several generations. A

new National Planning Framework (NPF) is being pre-

pared for Ireland to succeed the National Spatial Strategy

2002 (NSS). The NSS failed abysmally and was ofﬁcially

scrapped in February 2013. The new framework is due to

be published in the ﬁrst quarter of 2017 depending on

its adoption by the Oireachtas and relevant statutory

requirements. The Department for Housing, Planning

and Local Government published a roadmap for its prep-

aration last December. Before we get stuck in to this, the

ﬁrst question must be: why did the NSS fail and what are

the lessons?

What was the National Spatial

Strategy?

The NSS was Ireland’s ﬁrst national strategic spatial and

territorial planning framework and was held up as, theo-

retically, the best in Europe at the time. The strategy was

a twenty-year planning framework designed to deliver

more balanced social, economic and physical develop

ment between regions. The NSS was to provide a

response to the growing imbalances in socio-economic

development that occurred during the Celtic Tiger period

in the late 1990s. In the foreword, An Taoiseach, Bertie

Ahern, states that to achieve “balanced regional devel

opment” a greater share of economic activity must take

place outside the Greater Dublin Area. It requires that

the full potential of each region to contribute to the over-

all performance of the State be developed in a

sustainable economic, social and environmental basis.

To achieve this the National Spatial Strategy set out a

framework for gateways, hubs and other urban and rural

areas to act together.

In 1969 the Buchanan Report was published advocat

ing the concentration of industrial development within

‘growth centres’ comprising, in addition to Dublin, two

national growth centres in Cork and Limerick-Shannon;

six regional growth centres in Athlone, Drogheda, Dun

dalk, Galway, Sligo and Waterford; and a further four

local-growth centres in Castlebar, Cavan, Letterkenny

and Tralee. This proposal proved highly controversial

and wasn't implemented, dying a death by inertia.

by Emma Gilleece

Take the spat

out of spatial

Time for consensual but disciplined balanced

regional development through a long-delayed

new National Planning Framework

ENVIRONMENT

The Greater Dublin Area

should accept no more

than 25% of future

population growth

More development here...

Limerick

Nov/Dec 2016 5 3

Zones, Hubs and Gateways

The NSS emerged more than 30 years later, pro-

posing the classiﬁcation of 18 cities and towns,

and their associated hinterlands as ‘gateways’

and ‘hubs’. While this is similar to the approach

advocated in the Buchanan Report, the NSS dif

fers as it encompassed a greater number of

places and conceptualised spatial development

within a hierarchical framework of networked

places, including the gateways and hubs, as well

as ‘other towns’, ‘other places’ and ‘rural areas’

. The plan divided the country into ﬁve zones;

• Consolidating the Greater Dublin Area

•

Strengthening the South, South East, West

and North West to complement Dublin

• Revitalising the West and South West

•

Reinforcing central parts of Ireland and the

South East

• Co-operating in an all-island context

The Gateways were: Dublin, Cork, Galway, Lim

erick/Shannon, Waterford, Dundalk, Sligo, and

two linked Gateways Letterkenny/Derry, Ath-

lone/Tullamore/Mullingar. The Gateways were

to have populations of more than 100,000 pro-

viding “critical mass necessary to sustain strong

levels of job growth in the regions”. There were

nine strategically located, medium sized Hubs

supported by the Gateways: Cavan, Ennis, Kilk-

enny, Mallow, Monaghan, Tuam and Wexford.

Ballina/Castlebar and Tralee/Killarney would

act as “linked hubs”. Hubs were to have popula-

tion of 20-40,000 and provide localised critical

mass and ‘link the capabilities of the Gateways

to other areas”.

Unfortunately key policy and political stake-

holders rejected the concept of gateways and

hubs as urban-centric and detrimental to the

development of rural areas. It would turn out that

the concept of rural development was largely

limited to enabling residential housing construc-

tion in rural areas rather than a broader

conceptualisation encompassing social or eco-

nomic dimensions.

The debate which followed the NSS reﬂected

in many ways the one that had followed the

Buchanan Report.

Crucially the National Spatial Strategy after

2002 imported its own inertia, that of non-imple-

mentation. The Strategy had no teeth. So-called

implementing guidelines such as the "Strategic

Policy Guidelines" were deliberately made non-

mandatory by governments viscerally

antagonistic to central planning, and were duly

ﬂouted in local authority development plans,

and more particularly the planning permissions

that were to derive from them. It lacked teeth but

it also crucially lacked a timetable and dedicated

funding.

Despite its feebleness it generated such a

backlash that alternative measures were intro-

duced, most notably Charlie McCreevy’s

‘surprise’ policy of “decentralisation”, actively

discouraging concentrations and emphasising

dispersal of industrial investment. This Depart-

ment of Finance sponsored initiative ignored

over half of the NSS-nominated Gateway and

Hub settlements in favour of a broad, ostensibly

populist ‘pepper-spread’.

At the time An Taisce identiﬁed obvious ﬂaws

in the NSS and proposed comprehensively that:

"Good planning policy must be guided by

principles of sustainability and the minimisation

of resource use. In general these factors con-

duce to consolidation and sensitive development

of existing villages, towns and cities which tend

to have economic, social and cultural infrastruc-

ture; and be well served by public transportation.

It is not possible or wise to suppress housing

demand but the model of predict and provide

that is currently being implemented on the

ground in the Greater Dublin Area and to too

great an extent was enshrined more generally

in the last spatial strategy, has not served the

common good. There are signiﬁcant social dis

beneﬁts from continuing growth of Dublin.

These include congestion in Dublin and the

opportunity cost of failing to staunch rural

depopulation. For these inert projections of a

rise in the proportion of the country’s popula-

tion that lives in Dublin are dangerous. Nor is

any signiﬁcant increase in the mid-east (Kildare,

Wicklow and Meath) since development of this

area more than any in the country conduces to

car-dependent sprawl.

More speciﬁcally it proposed the following

The future of planning should rest with "cross-

sectoral partnerships", facilitated by planners,

comprising ten or ﬁfteen people including local

authority ofﬁcials, Councillors, developers,

shopkeepers, environmentalists, community

groups, trades unionists, tourism representatives

and others. If you can get agreement among

these people you may well be looking at

sustainable development

... and less here

... and even here

Leitrim countryside

Meath

5 4 Nov/Dec 2016

which it described as “sustainable”:

A shift in population growth away from Dublin and its

hinterland. The Greater Dublin Area should accept no

more than 25% of future population growth, though

Dublin City and areas of social and economic depriva-

tion around Dublin should be targeted for special

investment.

2. The development of “Gateway” growth centres with

an inter- and intra-regional spread. So, high-quality

development of Cork, Limerick, Galway and Waterford

is imperative. Beyond this balanced regional develop-

ment and a need to avoid unnecessary emigration

suggests there should be a growth centre in the North

West, perhaps Sligo, or Letterkenny and Derry. Three

further towns – Tipperary, Portarlington, Co Laois and

Claremorris, Co Mayo - representing a geographical

spread and all either now or potentially well-served

by rail transport could be added to this list. Beyond

these balanced regional development is not served by

designation of innumerable other growth centres at

this level

To insure intra-regional balance, all existing towns

and villages should be encouraged to consolidate,

providing for local growth and making full use of exist-

ing infrastructural potential – social, economic,

cultural and environmental. Quality developments in

villages, including affordable developments, may pro-

vide an alternative to one-off housing.

4. Publication of mandatory regulations implementing

the spatial strategy as soon as possible for all cities

and major towns and their hinterlands. Regulations

should have teeth so that they override Local Author-

ity Development Plans. They should also have a

timetabled and costed implementation strategy.

5. A transport investment policy which is based on rail

as the primary mode of inter-city and inter-regional

transport, and an increase in light rail and buses.

Integration of Transport and Land-Use Planning

Policies.

7. A general end to urban-generated (commuter) hous

ing, “one-off” i.e. sporadically or unplanned in the

countryside. One-off housing scores very badly eco-

nomically, socially and environmentally. Much

reference is made in national policy to the desirability

of development of rural areas, without clariﬁcation

that this refers primarily to towns and villages and is

There is a pressing need

to curtail one-off housing

and develop the potential

of Ireland’s four provincial

cities. With an average

size of just over 100,000

they are scarcely cities in a

global context

ENVIRONMENT

Ireland’s 3 Regions and 8 Strategic Planning Areas as per the Local Government

Act 1991 (Regional Assemblies) (Establishment) Order 2014

DUBLIN'S GROWTH IS NOT SUSTAINABLE

London: 16.2% of English population

Paris: 15.8% of French population

Moscow: 7.8% of Russian population

Berlin: 4.3% of German population

New York: 2.6% of US population

Shanghai: 1.6% of Chinese population

Greater Dublin Area:

38% of Irish population

National Planning

Framework (2015)

Nov/Dec 2016 5 5

without prejudice to a general injunction

against one-off housing. Outside of substan-

tial existing settlements new residential

construction should be limited to those who

intend to live in the countryside because their

job connects them to the land where it is pro-

posed to build the house or for reasons of

compelling social need - in order, for example,

to take care of elderly or sick relatives.

In short, rural development should be wel

comed though notone-off housing

development in the countryside.

Above all however, once the above factors are

accommodated, development must be to the

highest possible quality standards. No coun

try in the history of civilisation has been as

rich as we are with the opportunity to recreate

its living environment”.

An Taisce also made imaginative proposals on

Community and Quality:

“Imagine a world where development

improved the environment and strengthened

communities - and so served the public interest,

the long-term public interest. Imagine a world

where developers were heroes - and not just in

the property supplements.

What would such a system

look like?

All we would really need is proper plans and

proper standards promoting quality of life and

protecting the environment, overseen by the

right people, especially local people.

To facilitate progress a structure could be

devised to ensure that the privilege of tax incen-

tives went - and went only - to developments that

served the the long-term interest of the public

rather than the short-term interest of the devel-

oper i.e. to sustainable development which took

account of the socio-environmental effects, not

just the economic effects, of development. We

need incentives for sustainability, penalties for

the wrong development in the wrong place,

Roundtable input, Framework Plans with teeth

and a monitoring mechanism – indicators.

The future of planning should rest with

"roundtables". These are "cross-sectoral part-

nerships", facilitated by planners, comprising

ten or ﬁfteen people including local authority

ofﬁcials, County (or City) Councillors, develop-

ers, shopkeepers, environmentalists,

community groups, trades unionists, tourism

representatives and others. The rainbow in fact.

If you can get agreement among these people

you may well be looking at sustainable

development”.

None of this happened but instead there was

a free-for-all, led by one-off housing in the coun-

tryside, in breach of national and local plans.

So what is the National

Planning Framework?

As indicated in the document Towards a National

Planning Framework; a Road Map for the Deliv-

ery of the National Planning Framework

(December 205) the NSS’s ﬁve zones will become

three regions comprising Strategic Planning

Areas (SPAs)

•

Northern and Western Region: Donegal, Sligo.

Monaghan, Leitrim, Cavan (Border SPA) Mayo,

Roscommon and Galway (West SPA).

•

Eastern and Midland Region : Dublin City,

South Dublin, Fingal, Dún Laoghaire-Rath

down (Dublin SPA); Kildare, Wicklow, Meath

(Eastern SPA); Westmeath, Offaly, Laois,

Longford and Louth (Midland SPA)

•

Southern Region: Wexford, Waterford, Carlow,

Kilkenny (South East SPA); Cork and Kerry

(South West SPA); Limerick, Clare, and Tipper-

ary (Mid-West SPA).

The main difference between the NPF and its pre-

decessor NSS is the reduction in the number of

targeted areas in favour of groupings that have

demographic and economic relationships. Previ-

ously too many were created by political

cronyism with a ‘one for everyone in the audi-

ence’ attitude.

It is not at all clear if the Framework will be

supported by measures to implement it and

moving from a 'Strategy' to a 'Framework' even

tends to suggest something of a retreat.

A particularly robust intervention will be

required if Ireland’s disbalance between Dublin’s

primacy and its laggard provincial cities, is to be

addressed. in the most recent inter-censal

period of 2006-2011, Dublin and environs grew

by almost 65,000 as against just 15,000 for the

other cities. The designated Gateway and Hub

settlements comprised a 42.2% share of State

population in 2002 but accounted for just 27.76%

of total population growth by 2011.

The National Planning Framework can only

work if (a) it is enforced and (b) planners in Local

Authorities are given the necessary resources to

promote the infrastructure that can support its

prescriptions.

The Need for Focussed Growth

in Ireland’s Cities

There is a pressing need to develop the potential

of Ireland’s four provincial cities. With an aver-

age size of just over 100,000 they are scarcely

cities in a world context though they tend to

serve as engines of growth for their respective

regions. The 1997 European Spatial Develop-

ment Perspective’s deﬁnition of a ‘city’ is a

settlement of 200,000 - marginally greater than

Cork’s 2011 population. Limerick, Galway and

Waterford,with an average citizenry of just

73,250, fall well short. This scale-deﬁciency rep-

resents a signiﬁcant barrier to their potential to

exert critical-mass leverage. It also highlights

Ireland’s spatial dysfunctionality insofar as it is

‘missing’ a tier of settlements with populations

of 200,000 to 500,000.

Policy-makers have over-estimated Ireland’s

provincial cities’ ability to grow organically. It is

essential that the next spatial plan address this

gap, and deal with the not necessarily desirable

growth of counties, and towns, in Dublin’s hin

terland of Meath, Wicklow and Kildare.

While most counties experienced some level

of population growth three counties witnessed

population decline over the last 5 years: Donegal

(-1.5%), Mayo (-0.2%) and Sligo (0.19%). Three

other counties grew by less than 1 per cent:

South Tipperary which increased by 0.72 per

cent.

The cities of Cork, Galway, Limerick and Water-

ford have all grown faster than their surrounding

counties over the last ﬁve years. After falling

during the previous inter-censal period of 2006

to 2011 by -0.2 per cent, Cork City has grown by

5.4 per cent compared with 4.2 per cent for the

county; Galway City has increased by 5.3 per

cent, far stronger than the county which is show-

ing an increase of 2.2 per cent, while Waterford

City has seen growth of 3.5 per cent compared

with only 1.4 per cent for the county. Limerick

City experienced a 2.7 per cent dip between

2002 and 2006. However it has since recovered

and increased by 2.1 per cent since 2011. With

the capital being allowed to grow with no limits

these 'growth cities' as identified in the

Buchanan Report never got the chance to coun-

ter-balance the swell. Today almost 38 per cent

of the Irish population live in the Greater Dublin

Area.

We have built around 500,000 units since the

millennium, additional to the 1,200,000 then

existing reﬂecting population increase to 4.76m.

It is not yet clear how many more we project to

build over the next decade but IBEC, in an admit-

tedly not well-supported policy document’

Connected – a Prosperous Island of ten million

people’, notes we have the youngest population

in the EU – more than half under 35, and says

population will rise another 30% by 2040. We

have the money to forge a model new Ireland. We

must not squander our opportunity”.

Balanced regional development makes people

happier. It’s time to prove National Spatial Strat-

egy is not an oxymoron in Ireland.

Emma Gilleece is an architectural historian

writing in a personal capacity.

5 6 Nov/Dec 2016

HE LARGEST estate in County Longford, Castle-

forbes demesne has been home to the Earls of

Granard since the early seventeenth century.

The castellated neo-Gothic Castle, in the style

of the better known Tullynally Castle in neigh

bouring Westmeath, forms the centrepiece of a complex

assemblage of historic buildings which still serve a

working demesne with more than 20 people employed.

Bordering Lough Forbes, a lake shaped by a broaden

ing of the River Shannon, the estate’s ancient woodlands

are protected by European and national designations.

The neighbouring protected raised bogs, located on the

south-eastern shore of Lough Forbes, are of interna-

tional importance as unique examples of the most

northerly Shannon River edge bogs, a haven for migra-

tory geese and merlins which forage intrepidly in the

woodland glades.

The ﬁrst records of the woodland date from 1682,

where a visitor: “found growing there in great order large

groves of ﬁr of all sorts, with pines, juniper, cedar, lime

trees, beech, elm, oak, ash, Asp (aspen) and the famous

platanous [vast oriental plane] tree”.

Generations of the Earls of Granard have managed the

woodlands, introducing rare European ash, unique

American sequoias (western redwoods) – now almost a

hundred years old – periodically renewing the ancient

broadleaf woodlands.

Under the late Lord Granard, the public enjoyed the

beneﬁts of the estate and its woodlands, with regular

shoots for the Earl’s private guests. After his death in

1992, his daughter, Lady Georgina Forbes, took up resi-

dence in 1994. A successful owner of international

showjumping horses, described as a "blue-blooded ani-

mal-lover", she called a halt to the game shooting.

Publicity-shy, she instituted a policy of no admission to

the public, closing the imposing gates and retreating to

her isolated cottage at weekends with her twelve dogs.

The undisturbed ancient woodlands attracted the

attention of Scottish Woodlands, a forestry management

company from the UK. In 1998, one of their representa-

tives was made a Director of Rawden Estates,

Castleforbes Estate’s legal entity. The shareholding of

Rawden Estates is divided between the ‘Skerry

Foundation’, with an address in Luxembourg (3,371,759

shares) and Mark Connellan, the Secretary and Director

of Rawden Estates since 2004 and State Solicitor for

County Longford (3 shares). Rawden Estates increased

its authorised share capital from €10m to €15m in March

2012 and from €15m to €18.125m in December 2013. In

July 2014, furniture from the castle was sold at Christie’s,

one table alone netting €606,066.

In November 1998 the estate was approved for a

Woodland Improvement Scheme grant from the Forest

Service which in this case does not seem to have

required much planting. But what transpired was not the

improvements intended through management measures

for Annagh Woodland, the most valuable of the woods,

but – according to a so-far reliable, anonymous source

who contacted the author - a “free-for-all, as access was

fully available, timber was being stolen left, right and

centre and Rawden Estate never received a penny”. The

felling included “specialised machinery brought in so

that the oak trees could be removed in full lengths [and]

these were later shipped to Scotland for auction”.

The Forest Service records show that no felling licence

was applied for at that time. At current rates with the

additional seven-year Woodland Premium the grant pay-

ments for the 86.7 hectares ‘improvement’ would cost

the State over €645,000.

When the situation was brought to Georgina Forbes’

attention, the felling was halted, and after some legal

manoeuvrings Scottish Woodland resigned in 1999.

Encouragingly, the management of the woodlands was

given to Greenbelt, a leading Irish forestry company,

which has been properly addressing the issue of invasive

species - ironically brought in by the family as a cover for

game-shooting many years ago. Greenbelt’s last docu-

mented payment was in 2012.

Rural memories are long and when Scottish Wood-

lands re-emerged in 2014 those who had watched the

destruction in 1999 were horriﬁed. The company applied

for a thinning licence for Annagh Wood. The local author-

ity showed concern, noting that “This area of mature

broadleaf runs along the shore of Lough Forbes on the

Shannon River system and is a most scenic and beauti

ful part of Longford and Ireland”.

Scottish Woodlands ravages Castleforbes

woodlands in Longford, with impunity from

ineffectual Forest Services, Parks and

Wildlife Service and government

by Tony Lowes

"Please do

something – it’s

appalling what’s

going on – there

are wild animals

scampering out

in the road"

Castle

foreboding

Illustration by Alex Mathers

Nov/Dec 2016 5 7

Scottish Woodland explained in its licence

application that it managed the demesne

through “low Impact Sylvicultural Systems”

which it explained means that it is managed

according to “close to nature principles”. It

would “encourage and promote natural regen-

eration by increasing air movement and UV

levels unto the woodland ﬂoor”. “The resultant

timber”, it wrote, “would be extracted by for-

warder to roadside where it would be sold as

ﬁrewood”.

The licensing conditions were clear and

unambiguous:

“On inspection of this area, mature specimens

of Oak are found along the perimeter of these

plots. These trees are estimated to be approxi-

mately 70 years old and have developed well.

The soils in this area are clearly capable of car-

rying deciduous trees. Replant area with native

trees. Leave all Oak, Holly, and Rowan

standing”.

The NPWS [National Parks and Wildlife]

Ranger met Scottish Woodlands on site as oper-

ations were beginning in December 2014

because the licence conditions had to be revised.

There were “no resources in the NPWS to carry

out the survey (as required in the original condi

tions)”. Scottish Woodland said they would mark

the trees themselves and reiterated to the

Ranger that “the wood claimed from this felling

would go to the ﬁrewood industry”.

In fact, the company had had a map prepared

way back in 1999 helpfully pinpointing every valu-

able tree on the estate. Annagh Wood was

savaged, with even the speciﬁcally protected 30

mature oaks felled. Once deep in the woodland,

rare and valuable European ash and Spanish

chestnut were also felled. Local residents, who

had also been reassured at the outset by the

workers that the felling was for ﬁrewood, were

horriﬁed. One of them approached James Bannon,

the local Fine Gael TD, who tabled a Parliamentary

Question on Tuesday 2 December 2015:

“To ask the Minister for Arts, Heritage and the

Gaeltachta the action she will take to save the

oak woodlands (details supplied) in County

Longford; and if she will make a statement on

the matter”.

Heather Humphreys, the typically uninspired

Minister for Heritage, obligingly if non-comittally

replied “My Department is investigating this

matter and I will write to the Deputy when I have

received a report”.

The Report from the NPWS, also dated 2

December, 2015, conﬁrmed the felling of the

oaks: “Most oak trees selected were between

60-80 years old, with the occasional older tree”.

Crucially, no mention was made of the licence

restrictions to ﬁrewood, or of the clear prohibi-

tion on the removal of these oaks. The matter

was never referred to the Forest Service, in spite

of its role as the licensing authority. Nor, again

tellingly, did the Minister ever provide the

Deputy with an answer.

Despite having lost his Fine Gael seat in the

last election, Bannon – one of whose associates

was accused of stealing his opponents election-

eering leaﬂets from letter boxes - refused to be

interviewed on the lost parliamentary reply on

the grounds that he did not “want to embarrass

my Minister”, - at least not any further, one

presumes.

The simmering resentment over the felling at

Annagh Woods in November 2015 undoubtedly

fuelled the extraordinary public outrage when

Scottish Woodland arrived in 2016 to cut into

another woodland, this time at the most sensi-

tive time of the year. Signs showing the

company’s plans were defaced and removed.

The orange paint, intended for marking the trees

to be protected, was used to daub the castle wall

with IRA slogans.

The previous 2014 ‘ﬁrewood’ licence had been

referred by the Forest Service to the NPWS which

imposed a condition requiring that no works take

place during the March to September breeding

season. Now, one of the two new licences was

returned by the NPWS regional management to

the Forest Service with no comment and the

other was not even sent to the NPWS by the

Forest Service as required.

As work got underway, a distraught Ranger

met the local Forest Service Inspector on 24

March, outlining “the presence of pine martins,

breeding buzzards, suspected breeding wood-

peckers” – which had started to colonise Ireland

on the east coast only in 2008 – “breeding red

squirrels, breeding ravens and many other spe

cies of countryside birds”. They agreed to seek

a stay on the works until September.

The NPWS Ranger appealed to her line ofﬁcer

in urgent emails. “As we speak, drays of red

squirrels, nests of buzzards and the nest of

woodpeckers, dens of pine martens are the sub-

ject of destruction”. According to the NPWS

Regional Manager the Ranger had been “under-

mined and embarrassed” by the breakdown in

the system that had left her unaware of any new

licences. “Can you please ﬁnd out why this

important application did not reach my desk?”,

she asked the NPWS line manager who replied

that she was going on leave that evening and so

unable to meet anyone or arrange for an assess

ment - and for this reason seems to bear more

responsibility than anyone for the debacle. The

Felling at Castleforbes, March 2016

Castleforbes House

30 mature oaks were

felled. Once deep in

the woodland, rare and

valuable European ash

and Spanish chestnut

were also knocked.