Landscape protection plan to be piloted in Tara valley

A new plan aimed at protecting the landscape and improve planning decisions nationally is to be piloted in the Tara/Skryne valley. The Heritage Council has announced it will carry out the project in conjunction with Meath County Council, which envisages the development of a landscape management plan and designate a landscape conservation area. The initial funding for the project - €25,000 - is to be provided by the Heritage Council and the county council. The Department of the Environment is expected to come up with further funding next year and the total end cost is expected to be €125,000. The project, expected to take between 18 and 24 months, will start in the autumn by examining current and potential land use and develop a plan for the area. The community will also be asked to have an input and this will be led by the county council. Heritage Council chief executive Michael Starrett said the project was an important step towards the realisation of a national landscape strategy. He said that landscape management was about accommodating change and developments. 'It provides a much more holistic approach than the current model, to planning how we manage and develop the landscape where we live. It enables local communities to play an essential role in managing their own area, and has been very successful when introduced to other European countries,' he said. Mr Starrett said the project was about finding a successful model that could be applied to special landscapes across the State and another pilot was planned for the Burren. Details of that project will be announced later this year. Studies published by the Heritage Council and Failte Ireland last year indicated that there was an urgent need for clear guidelines on land use. They found that Ireland was the only country in western Europe which had no specific legislation for managing landscape on a national level. Mr Starrett said: 'With or without the new motorway, the Tara Skryne landscape is very special and it deserves special attention to ensure that future decisions and changes are made using the best tools available.' The TaraWatch organisation, however, described the Tara landscape protections as 'a token gesture, like using a band aid to fix a broken nose'. It said that while it welcomed the efforts of the Heritage Council to create a Tara-Skryne landscape management plan, the group deeply regretted that the Department of the Environment and Meath County Council had waited eight years before adopting landscape recommendations. 'As such, the plan is a mere token gesture towards preservation and balanced development.' The organisation said that Mr Starrett was right to note in its official press release that the Heritage Council had been actively promoting the introduction of landscape management plans for many years. 'The Heritage Council recommended in 2002 that a national programme of landscape characterisation be undertaken. Draft guidelines prepared by the Department of the Environment on landscape characterisation, which would have prevented this entire controversy, have been in circulation since 2000,' TaraWatch said. 'It was obvious that, during the road design process, consideration was given to Tara and cultural heritage. However, given the international significance of Tara, it is a matter of debate if sufficient weighting was placed upon heritage in the in the matrix of criteria used to inform the decision-making process. Survey work in 2004 undertaken by Lansdowne Market Research, on behalf of the Heritage Council, has identified a distinct shift in public attitude towards increased heritage protection and the levels of awareness of is importance to all income groups and nationwide. 'The survey can be benchmarked against a similar survey carried out in 1999. 'This is a shift in public attitudes we may all do well to heed and it may well be asked if we are handing Tara in to future generations in a better condition than we inherited it.' TaraWatch said that, furthermore, many of the self-same protections for Tara had already been written into the two previous Meath County Council development plans, but claimed these had never been enforced by the county council.