Sir, - I read with interest Barry Roche's article on the proposed marina at Union Hall in West Cork (Southern Report September 21st). I fully support and sympathise with the opposition being mounted by the residents' committee. It is to be regretted that all too many beautiful locations are being spoiled by developers who, at the end of the day, are only interested in lining their own pockets.
Two years ago my wife and I moved from Dublin to Blackwater. When I first visited this location some 15 years ago it was a picturesque country village with an unspoilt air. Even in the past two years there has been considerable development, with two large housing estates being built on opposite sides of the approach road close to the church. In addition, a large supermarket-cum-hotel complex has been constructed right in the heart of the village. This large edifice is in itself out of place in this village but it has been further ruined by the unsightly signs erected on the front of the building. The village also now suffers traffic congestion and indiscriminate parking, not to mention the large number of heavy sand lorries passing through it every day in the name of constructing golf courses all over the country.
As readers may be aware, Blackwater has, for the first time in many years, lost its place as the best kept village in the Co Wexford Tidy Towns and Villages competition. This may be only a temporary setback but one cannot but feel that the current developments in the village have adversely affected its rating.
It is high time that the planning authorities took it upon themselves to restrict indiscriminate development which, if allowed to continue, will cause the demise of the charming country village as we know it. One has only to look at places like Castle Combe in the Cotswolds and Dent in the Yorkshire Dales to see how it should be done. Both of these beautiful villages are host to hundreds of visitors annually, but no development is allowed. Wexford County Council should, more than others perhaps, be alive to the potential for self-destruction, bearing in mind the hideous developments which have taken place in the name of rural development in the Courtown/Ardamine area in recent times. - Yours, etc.,
Ernie Shepherd, Blackwater, Co Wexford.