The National Development Plan gives priority to economic goals at the expense of our fragile heritage, the Heritage Council has said. The council has presented a submission on the development plan to the Government which states that much of the proposed development is likely to leave a significant impression on the landscape, and highlights the fragility of our heritage in the expanding economy.
The submission stated that there was an unprecedented rate of destruction of archaeological monuments, with 10 per cent of all such monuments being destroyed each decade. It also warned that heritage was a non-renewable resource, especially to changes in land use.
At a press conference yesterday, the chief executive of the council, Mr Michael Starrett, said the Government's £40 billion development plan, which covered the years 2000 to 2006, was likely to face endless obstacles in its implementation, both legal and otherwise, if its likely impact on heritage and the environment was not properly assessed.
Mr Starrett said poor strategic planning would lead to legal actions, court orders and public demonstrations. Unless the heritage issues were addressed there would be delays which would ultimately be costly.
The submission called for a full strategic environmental assessment of the plan as the nature and extent of its likely impact on the national heritage, including landscape, was not clear. Mr Starrett said he wanted to see heritage explicity referred to in the plan.
"Our heritage is very fragile. There is a tendency in all development plans to give unfair weighting to economic goals at the expense of our heritage," he said.
He emphasised that the council was not opposed to the development plan nor its objectives. However, the impression the plan would leave on the landscape should not be played down. Through an unprecedented rate of physical and infrastructural development, it would determine the nature and extent to which the landscape would change over the next seven years.
In this context, the council regretted that heritage and environmental sustainability were not included among the plan's key objectives.
"Recent examples of development being obstructed at an advanced stage by public protests and legal battles are all too plentiful," he said. He gave as illustrations the Glen of the Downs and the Kildare bypass conflicts.
Asked why the council did not make submissions to Government before the development plan was finalised, Mr Starrett said that by the time the council was fully established the plan was well down the road. It was not too late as the plan was couched in broad terms. Mr Paddy Mathews, planning officer of the council, said that next week it would publish the findings of a survey on the general awareness of the public about heritage issues.
Mr Starrett said the general awareness was not very high and they wanted to raise it. People focused entirely on the old castle type of heritage. The national heritage was defined in the Heritage Act 1995 as including monuments, archaeological objects, flora, fauna, wildlife habitats, landscapes, seascapes, heritage gardens and parks, and inland waterways. The chairwoman, Ms Ruth Delany, said one of the objectives of the council was to give back to communities their role in looking after their own heritage.