The Irish Times

Much of the development in our towns and villages is "mediocre, poorly-designed and ill-considered", a planning conference was told yesterday. Mr Mike Shanahan, architect and author of the design guidelines for Cork County Council, said the problem of "dead-end" housing built on the edges of towns and villages must be urgently tackled. These estates were seen as almost the only means of expanding towns and villages, he said. He also questioned the reliance on the suburban house model, preferably detached, with its own front and back garden and cars parked to the front. He called for pilot projects to look at the alternatives to the suburban model of development, and said local authorities should appoint town and county architects as well as establishing a system of pre-planning meetings between developers, designers and planners.