The breezeblock was replacing the dry stone wall as the dominant landscape characteristic of the west of Ireland, the president of the Irish Planning Institute told the institute's annual conference in Galway yesterday.
Addressing the issue of "one-off housing" in rural areas, Mr John Spain said it was possible that too much damage had already been done to the landscape - particularly on the western seaboard - to make what was left worth saving.
Without a major Government initiative, very little of value would be left "within a generations's time", he said.
Mr Spain described the current Draft Landscape Guidelines from the Department of the Environment as a welcome "small step" but said that they did not always have the support of local public representatives.
He maintained that "one-off houses" in the countryside had little to do with the rural economy or rural life in many instances and he described such development as a "scattering of urban housing over wide areas almost at random".
He said there was a need for a national policy to bring an end to the destruction of outstanding landscapes wrought by a "succession of individual, small developments", as well as for an end to suburban-style ribbon developments.
However, the debate on this had become polarised, and it was the role of the professional planners to find a balance and a way forward.
Regarding development which was aimed at maintaining or revitalising rural communities, Mr Spain said there was a need to adopt basic principles in relation to design and the siting of new houses in order that they would "seek to respect and fit in with their setting rather than ignore or scream at it, as is often the case".
He said simple things, such as the retention of a hedgerow or stone walls, "whatever the characteristic of the area", could make a big difference.
Mr Spain emphasised that landscapes should be protected and enhanced not only for tourism, but for quality of life. "These measures must go hand-in-hand with initiatives to bring about the renewal and regeneration of small villages and the rural economy in a way which respects and works with rural traditions and the landscape."
He was also critical of the urban sprawl and said that, to his knowledge, not one county or city manager was a professional town planner or a member of the institute.
He maintained that the planning system had delivered on housing, pointing out that the number of new houses for which planning permission had been granted in 1999 was 76,500. In 2000, the figure had increased to 91,200. This compared to completions by builders of 46,500 in 1999 and 49,800 in 2000. It was clear, he said, that there was an accumulation of unimplemented planning permissions.
However, housing was not just about numbers, and an unbalanced focus on the "numbers game" had led to urban sprawl, which, in the 1960s and 1970s, had resulted in "some of the least successful new neighbourhoods".
There was, he said, a need for "much greater emphasis on the quality of urban design and sustainability in housing developments".
