Sir, - I read with interest the full-page commercial feature on Carton House Golf Club (October 23rd). This is a major development of not just one but two 18-hole golf courses, a 228-bedroom hotel and at least 150 residential units. The feature article abounds with phrases such as "the golfing product at Carton is of the highest order" . . . " little piece of property is very special".
It is becoming clear that the pursuit of the little white ball is having a severe and detrimental effect on the natural and man-made landscape in the Republic of Ireland.
In Northern Ireland careful monitoring by EHS, Built Heritage, has managed to head off this sort of development on archaeological and historic sites of any sort. This has been facilitated by the setting up of a Parks and Gardens Register comprising detailed maps, surveys and photographs which all government agencies involved in development control use when making decisions or granting permission. It is high time that such a register was commissioned and staffed in the Republic before more of our valuable heritage is bought up and ritually altered.
In the section titled "Heritage is central to £10 million project" much is made of the historical setting of the house and parkland. From the mid 1980s onwards there has been a veritable explosion in this type of development.
Curiously nearly all have chosen to locate in demesnes and represent not local interests but global ones catering for the corporate sector.
I find it hard to believe that planners have sanctioned the wholesale desecration on the Carton Estate to facilitate this development. If planning permission has been granted I would like to know what conditions were laid down and whether they are being adhered to. We are witnessing an unprecedented assault on the planned landscape of the 18th and 19th centuries. Landscape once altered can never ever be recreated even by the best golf course designers in the world! - Yours, etc.,
Cormac Scally, Marlborough Park, Belfast.