An Taisce has criticised plans to build over 450 houses in the vicinity of an unusual historical landmark in Leixlip, Co Kildare and has called for the preparation of an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS).

The body has written to Kildare County Council about developer David Daly's Albany Homes plans to build 476 houses on lands at Barnhall in Leixlip in the grounds of the Wonderful Barn, a stone grain store dating from 1746.

The barn is a folly built on the former Castletown Estate as a poverty relief project during the Famine. The seven-storey structure had a practical use as a grain store.

Although the proposed number of residential units is below the 500-unit threshold for urban fringe development and subsequently no EIS is required, the body has called for the presentation of an EIS.

The proposal forms part of a larger 90-acre residential development of the area, according to the heritage organisation, which said that applications are being "deliberately lodged under the mandatory EIS threshold in order to avoid the lodgement of an EIS and thereby cumulative assessment of development".

The proposed development directly affects a site of "cultural and heritage significance" according to An Taisce.

Describing the Wonderful Barn as "the most striking and unusual" structures of its kind in Ireland, the body said it forms part of a landscape which is of "international significance in Ireland".

"Notwithstanding the development which has already occurred in the area, severing the Wonderful Barn from its original landscape relationship with Castletown House, this proposal has a significantly greater impact because of its proximity to the Wonderful Barn," An Taisce stated in a letter to the council.

An Taisce has called for the developer to withdraw the application and to submit any future proposal as part of an integrated development which address the entire area of land.