Madam, - In expressing his concerns about rural planning in Ireland, Brian Ó Daimhín writes that "there is no planning school in Ireland" (August 16th). I would like to reassure him that there is.
University College Dublin, the Dublin Institute of Technology and Queen's University Belfast all provide various forms of planning education. The Department of Planning and Environmental Policy at UCD provides a two-year professional Master's degree programme which produces 50 graduates each year and has a substantial rural component (more than any other accredited programme of which I am aware).
The department also has an active research programme in, inter alia, rural development and planning. He will be glad to hear that the department does not base its teaching and research programme on any "alien models", including the English. In addition to examining best practice in Ireland and abroad, our researchers spend much time in the field talking to rural communities in Ireland, developing an understanding of their priorities and concerns, and integrating the findings into the department's teaching programme. We encourage diverse opinions and debate, backed up by evidence from independent research. Mr Ó Daimhín will be pleased to know that the majority of planning graduates each year are from rural backgrounds in Ireland, so they have an intimate knowledge of the rural way of life. - Yours, etc.,
Prof J. PETER CLINCH, Department of Planning and Environmental Policy, UCD, Dublin 14.
Madam, - Brian Ó Daimhín's impressive knowledge of the Gaelic/Norman townland model of rural settlement unfortunately undermines his case for defending it as a template for rural planning.
Who, nowadays, aspires to communal ownership? How many people applying for planning permission to build a house on a rural plot are concerned about the local community being self-sufficient in food? No such sense of common identity exists now among rural dwellers as may have existed in the time of clans and septs. Indeed, the dispersal of dwellings in this way tends to undermine social cohesion, as few people work where they live and all must travel by car.
If dispersed building continues unchecked the inevitable consequence will be that every rural road will in time be lined with houses and have the constant roar of traffic. People living there will have neither the convenience of living in town nor the peace of the countryside.
Restriction on the freedom to build in this haphazard way may seem hard to accept, but the benefits are clear. Together with serious reform in the zoning and planning system as a whole, it will enable us to build communities where there is good access to education, health, and public transport, which need a critical mass to be viable.
We cannot demand a high standard of public services and at the same time be allowed to build what we want where we want. At present the power in the planning process is in the hands of those concerned with their immediate interests in their immediate area. In both theory and practice this does not work for the common good and therefore requires serious scrutiny and reform. - Yours, etc.,
CHARLES BAGWELL, Millbrook, Co Kildare.