Madam, - As an ordinary member of the public, uninvolved in either building or local government, I find it increasingly difficult to understand the thinking behind planning authority decisions. The decision to grant planning for 200 houses in Enniscrone, Co Sligo against the advice of the local authority's own inspector and the expressed wishes of community is a case in point.
The locals see the place developing into a holiday village during the summer and a ghost town in winter. Neighbouring Co Donegal, which has extensive experience in the effects of holiday homes, has tried to introduce controls to limit this type unsustainable development.
Living in a bungalow in a suburb, I cannot get planning permission for a bay window to the front of my house, but permission is given to build along the skyline of the our local village, so that the village no longer nestles among the hills but goes up the side and over the top of the hills.
A friend who lives on the coast cannot get permission to move the front door of her home, but permission is given to build directly behind the round tower in Ardmore so that it is no longer beautifully framed by the cliff and sky but by a block of apartments that look like broken teeth. The holiday home development on Red Barn Strand outside Youghal is breathtaking, for the wrong reasons.
I have always vaguely thought that the authorities must have some overall plan of which I am unaware; but unfortunately, although I am slow to admit it to myself, when I look around me this does not seem to be the case. - Yours, etc,
ELIZABETH O'CONNOR, Upper Woodlands, Cloghroe, Cork.