County development plans are key to `visual intrusion' issue

What constitutes "visual intrusion" as a ground for refusing planning permission? ala frequently cites visual intrusion when refusing planning permission and, in a noted case recently, the board overturned Galway County Council's decision to grant permission for a Crucifix at Carraroe. Recently An Bord Pleanala overturned Galway County Council's decision to grant permission for a crucifix at Carraroe, citing "visual intrusion". The 6 m-high stainless-steel crucifix was to have been erected at Carraroe, in the Connemara Gaeltacht, as part of a community effort to celebrate the millennium.

The planning application, in the name of Carraroe Millennium Committee, envisaged the crucifix standing on a headland in a commanding position overlooking the sea. Permission was granted last December, but last month the board said the proposed crucifix, at Bar an Doire, was in conflict with the provisions of the county development plan. It would be visually intrusive in the landscape and "would therefore be contrary to proper planning and development".

The board also considered that insufficient details of the dimensions of the structure, mounting arrangements and provision of safe pedestrian access had been supplied.

But if the question of the crucifix at Carraroe is over, the debate on visual intrusion is not. In a letter to The Irish Times last Thursday, Brendan Henderson of Dublin 18, himself a former member of a planning authority, challenged the decision, claiming it was based on "spurious political correctness gone mad". Keeping his tongue firmly in cheek, Mr Henderson went on to propose that the criterion of "visual intrusion" be applied "retrospectively to many existing developments, starting with Cork County Hall, to be followed by Liberty Hall, then the Wellington Monument, and, of course, the cross in the Phoenix Park and the Obelisk on Killiney Hill."

"Planners," he said, should "get a grip. Make your decisions on planning grounds, not on the basis of very obvious deference to the raucous anti-Christian, pagan culture which infests our land". However, a spokesman for An Bord Pleanala rejected the assertion that the Carraroe decision, or others which cite visual intrusion, are arbitrarily based on an individual's taste, much less a pagan consensus.

The key to delivery of a significant monument lies, according to An Bord Pleanala, with the county development plan. A spokesman pointed out that, in the Galway County Development Plan, the area at Bar an Doire was singled out for its views which were listed for protection. Nothing could be provided there, not even a statue of the crucified Christ.

The situation is not at all the same in relation to city-centre monuments, where the development plan may specifically seek appropriately defining city-centre landmarks or other such developments in keeping with the city status.

Similarly the County Hall in Cork could be said to define both its purpose and its setting and is therefore appropriate and not a "visual intrusion". "The development plan will usually define what is appropriate," said the spokesman for An Bord Pleanala.