Country roads, with their hedgerows and wildlife, were central to rural life, but rampant development is turning them into suburban-style routes, writes Patrick Shaffrey.
The small country road is one of the joys of the rural landscape. Many have existed for centuries along the lines of medieval and pre-medieval pathways. Others were built in the late 18th and early 19th centuries during the period of rapid population growth, both in countryside and towns. They were generally handcrafted, using only pick and shovel and wheelbarrow, respecting the natural lie of the land as they wound their way around the countryside, uphill and down dale. As a result they have fitted into the quilt-work pattern of fields, farmhouse buildings, rivers and other elements of the countryside and are an intrinsic and important visual, aesthetic and historical aspect of the rural landscape.
They are bordered by old hedgerows, often as old as the roads themselves, with a variety of indigenous plants and trees such as ash, sycamore, beech, hawthorn, honeysuckle, wild rose, fuchsia. The hedgerows also provide a habitat for a variety of wildlife, including birds, bees, badgers, and foxes. They change with the seasons: spare, sparse and quiet during winter, but intensely beautiful with a coating of frost or snow; alive and cheerful in spring with birds' song and new fresh and green growth; voluptuous and blowsy with their skirts of cabbage parsley during the summer; full of fruits and colours during the autumn.
Apart from providing an essential means of communication, the country road had a social significance. For generations, in many rural areas, work on the roads, whether with the County Council or a local contractor, was a major source of male employment, because they required continuous maintenance.
The country road was also an important setting for social events. People walked or cycled on them to their work, to church or to the local village; children walked to school and often dillied and dallied along them on the way home, exchanging stories, picking wild fruits, playing games. Certain locations, through custom or habit, were social meeting grounds for exchanging news, playing games or just passing the time of day in the company of friends.
In recent years small country roads have beeneroded by indiscriminate and ill-considered road-widening and new building developments, fuelled by a widespread indifference at both public and private level to their aesthetic, historic and ecological importance.
With the explosion of one-off housing, now aided and abetted by the recently published Government guidelines for so-called "sustainable rural housing", the visual qualities of the country road may soon be a memory. These policies also have serious social and environmental consequences which have not been adequately addressed. Everywhere old hedgerows are being removed and replaced by inappropriate road boundaries of concrete block, brick and stone walls, and suburban-type plants and hedges. Many country roads are now visually similar to the typical suburban roads in cities and towns.
In addition, their social function is to all intents and purposes finished. Children can no longer safely walk or cycle to school; a walk along a country road could be classified a dangerous occupation. The idea of standing round for a chat and small gathering on even the remotest of roads is no longer feasible. Most country roads now are busy, noisy and dangerous traffic routes. They are infinitely more dangerous than the residential roads in the suburbs of cities and towns.
For years, planning authorities, when granting permission for rural housing, invariably required the removal of the existing hedgerows and the new boundary to be set back so as to enable a quiet small country road to be widened. In recent years, however, some planning authorities have made it a requirement that existing hedgerows are protected in the context of new housing, but this is invariably ignored and there appears to be little or no enforcement regarding this matter.
Local authorities are obliged to define the different types of landscape within the areas and adopt policies for their conservation, protection and improvement. The Local Government (Planning and Development) Act 2000 requires planning authorities to adopt objectives to protect the character of the rural landscape.
In 2000, the Department of the Environment issued Draft Guidelines for Landscape Assessment. These have not yet been formally approved.
However, few landscape plans have yet been prepared and adopted and none, as far as I am aware, has formally recognised and protected the special qualities of the traditional country road. Official policies, if anything, are going in the opposite direction.
In preparing future landscape policies, planning authorities should clearly identify those country roads which have not yet been intensively developed and designate them as "green roads". On these roads there would be stricter controls of the existing landscaping, traffic speeds reduced and the road considered as an integral part of the local environment and not merely a traffic route.
The impact of new developments on the road, including all its elements, trees and hedgerows, should be identified as an integral part of all planning applications. Such roads could also form the basis for future walking and cycle routes - essential for future generations who will be living in or near the countryside.
If the planning authorities would take this aspect of rural planning seriously, the great environmental and social qualities of the country road will not be just a memory for future generations.
However, it is difficult to be optimistic. The current policies for one-off rural housing may mean that this generation is now witnessing the destruction of a unique national asset as the country roads of Ireland are being transformed into suburban-type traffic routes.
Patrick Shaffrey is an architect who writes on architectural and environmental issues.