Madam, - Declan MacPartlin takes John Simington to task regarding rural housing (March 27th).
In particular, he is concerned about the application to Ireland of the standards of other countries to our planning strategies and in the case of the North, by people from outside Ireland.
I have been intrigued by some of the conditions applied to planning decisions.
Some are just wrong and even put the development in contravention of building regulations.
My favourite is one where applicants are obliged to screen the development with tree species common to the area.
They then list the species and I was puzzled in one case I saw by the inclusion of field maple (acer campestre).
I know what it looks like, but I had never seen one here. I checked with the Botanic Gardens and in the definitive book on Irish trees by Charles Nelson and Wendy Walsh. It doesn't grow here. It's not even listed in the book.
What was done was that someone took a list from a foreign planning text and imposed it on permissions.
It's just the same for the one-off house. If it's good enough for England, it'll do here.
There is much talk about the preservation of our heritage. Did our ancestors all live in villages pre-Famine?
How did the countryside accommodate nine million?
Is there a chance that the English planning strategy in the North will finally unite Orange and Green? - Yours, etc,
MICHAEL A MacNAMARA, Castleconnell, Co Limerick.