Madam, - I couldn't agree more with the recent correspondence from visitors to Donegal decrying the urbanising of our beautiful county. I was born and reared in Donegal and each day I despair as I drive through countryside dominated by large two-storey residences, with hedgerows replaced by a variety of stone walls, none using indigenous stone. The vast majority of these houses are not being built by the local population - or, to use the Government's own terminology, by "those with roots in or links to" the area.
While the planners in Donegal County Council have a case to answer, there is a loophole that allows many farmers to sell sites outside the family to developers or outsiders. It seems that councillors, when adopting the County Development Plan 2000, opted out of the clause in Section 38 forbidding the sale of a planning site or house for seven years after planning permission had been granted.
That is why there are so many "For Sale" signs outside newly built rural houses and a never ending stream of "Sites with Planning Permission" for sale along the disappearing hedgerows as farmers opt for property speculation instead of farming. - Yours, etc.,
MARY NOLAN, The Tops, Raphoe, Co Donegal.