Help Stop PPS14

A St Patrick's Day bombshell was delivered by Lord Rooker with the new Planning Policy Statement PPS14 Sustainable Development in the Countryside. It states that all applications received after 16th March 2006 for dwellings in the countryside will be subject to a presumption of refusal. Jane Burnside RIBA, of Jane D Burnside Architects, looks at the historical context and the need to defend our right to inhabit our landscape. But do we in fact have that right?
	Living in the Landscape?
Around 1834 when the first OS maps were being drawn up, townlands in many parts of the country were recognised as being owned or controlled by one or possibly more groups of connected families. These groups often lived in building clusters which we identify today as Clachans or sometimes hamlets. Similar patterns of development continued until the land was bought by the Government for the tenants in the Land Settlement Acts of 1890-1925. This resulted in the dispersal of small holdings throughout the Ulster countryside, unlike Scotland for example, where six or so land owners continue to own the stock of rural land between them.
	In more recent times the most significant Act affecting land patterns in Ireland was the 1903 'Wyndham Act' which became law in 1909. This Act encouraged landlords to sell off their estate lands except for the Estate Park and Home Farm. Bonuses were paid to the selling landlords as incentives, with money coming directly from Irish Revenues.
Between 1903 and 1920 nearly 9 million acres of land changed hands, with another 2 million acres in the process of being sold. These Land Acts meant that former tenants and labourers were able to purchase land where they lived and had the right to develop it as they saw fit, hence the pattern of scattered buildings and small holdings we see today. These scattered settlements have stood the test of time through their practicality to the farming community. Because of the wet climate, our agriculture has traditionally depended upon cattle husbandry, and naturally arising from this are scattered dwellings, small fields and tall hedges. Indeed, the formation of our landscape has largely been directed towards keeping the farmer close to his livestock and providing animals with shelter from the elements. These dwellings in the countryside, cottages, larger farmhouses and grander estate buildings, reflected the economic and land ownership status of the inhabitant. In fact, up until the end of the Second World War, there was little change in the design of rural dwellings. The next upheaval was the consequence of post war euphoria, which saw a major change in the way people thought about their homes. Magazines, Government radio broadcasts and then television, brought new ideas on living to a wide audience. It was an era of 'newness' and technology.
	Government called for dwellings to be light, spacious and open plan with the appropriate labour saving devices - all to encourage women to leave their factory jobs and resume their traditional role in the home. During the 1970's milk subsidies to farmers increased incomes and assured their sons an economic future on the farm, resulting in the building of new dwellings.
Some farmers and landowners, although they had lived in traditional rural dwellings, when given the opportunity to build their own homes chose designs which they thought to be attractive, modern and indicative of prosperity. They built suburban style red brick bungalows incorporating large picture windows with landscape proportions. Unfortunately, these houses reflected little of the rural context in which they were set. At the same time, package holidays abroad became affordable to a wide section of the population, a development inevitability followed by a rash of Ponderosa style bungalows in rural NI . The realisation that this profusion of bungalow development, usually at the roadside, was inappropriate in a rural context did not come until 1987 when the DoE produced the design guide 'Location Siting and Design in Rural Areas'. Since then a raft of design guides, each one imposing more and more restrictions on designers, has been brought in. Until now, these have formed the basis for decision making in the Planning Service. Clearly that process has not been effective. It has resulted in mass repetitious building of Georgianesque bungalows and houses throughout the rural Ulster. Whilst well intentioned, these policies have been implemented by the Planning Service on a damage limitation basis, and for very good reasons. 90% of our new rural housing stock never sees the hand of an architect. Instead, plan drawers (drafting technicians) vernacularise their tired but tested bungalows by adding quoins and neo-Georgian windows.
	The Planning Service's response to this is to limit the visual damage to the rural environment by restricting the height and the areas of these bungalows and setting them back from the road, usually behind a hedge. This new Planning Policy Statement will restrict rural dwellers to farmers and low income groups. It is just another damage limitation response and a further acceptance of the appalling level of design in rural houses. The policy is also in breach of the existing Land Acts and would stagnate Ulster's traditional settlement pattern. Because of the poor returns from farming, many people combine a small holding with a 'day job', which can be anything from a bricklayer to a barrister. They are as rightful custodians of the countryside as the full time farmer.
It is a typical and unique pattern of rural settlement and The Planning Service's aim should be to create a planning policy that will protect it. Lord Rooker would have us believe that if rural planning is to continue in the same way, we will soon have populated the entire Ulster countryside with bungalows. In reality, Northern Ireland is a patchwork of planning policy areas with vast swathes of Greenbelt Areas and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, where only those who farm can build. The rest, known as the rural remainder, was deemed as land that could be built upon, thus retaining our traditional small holding settlement pattern. This balanced response from the Planning Department both respects the time honoured tradition of Ulster folk inhabiting the countryside on small holdings, as well as protecting vast expanses of beautiful countryside for the visual enjoyment of all. 'If it ain't broke - why fix it?' So what is the Government's real agenda? Consider this. What will happen to all the small businesses in rural areas without the support of a community? Plumbers, electricians, bricklayers, garden designers, roofers, plasterers, home helps, childminders, rural schools and school bus drivers are just a few of the many whose jobs are now in jeopardy. Are we being sold the pup of centralisation of services to reduce Government costs and increase tax revenue from large developers, masquerading as countryside conservation?
	On a more positive note, Lord Rooker made one good decision; to put design in the countryside on top of the agenda. That surely should be the starting point of any new Rural Planning reform, but it should not mark the end of Rural Planning. Jane Burnside RIBA Jane D Burnside Architects, 12 Whappstown Road, Kells, Ballymena, Co Antrim BT42 3NX www.janedburnsidearchitects.co.uk Tel: 028-2589-2658