An Bord Pleanála is to rule this week on an appeal by the owners of the famed Mount Usher Gardens in Ashford, Co Wicklow, against a development plan which they claim would threaten the gardens' fragile eco-system, writes Frank McDonald, Environment Editor
Madelaine Jay and her family appealed against a decision by Wicklow County Council to grant permission to Brian Stokes, owner of the adjoining Inchinappa estate, for 145 houses in the first phase of a 500-unit scheme.
"While we are obviously upset to see the destruction of Inchinappa on an emotional level, it is the manner, context and most especially the density of the development that we feel is entirely inappropriate to the village of Ashford", say the Jays.
"There is simply not the infrastructure, public services or the amenities for a development of this scale - insufficient places in schools, no amenities for young or old other than two pubs, and a GAA pitch earmarked for sale and development".
Providing access to the proposed housing scheme would also involve "the wanton destruction of attractive local features and narrow country roads, particularly the Mill Road that runs between Inchinappa and Mount Usher", according to their appeal.
Inchinappa itself is a 200-acre enclosed estate, partially landscaped with rare and special trees, and a number of streams flow through it which directly affect the delicate flow of water through Mount Usher Gardens by way of ponds and sluices.
The Jays say they are "gravely concerned" that the onus of dealing with sewage treatment, surface water disposal and managing the streams flowing through Inchinappa into Mount Usher would ultimately fall to a private management company.
This would leave Mount Usher, which contains one of Ireland's most extensive botanical collections, "extremely vulnerable to flooding and pollution, with absolutely no recourse if the management company fails to live up to its obligations".
Laid out along the banks of the Vartry river, Mount Usher was designed in the Robinsonian style, with naturalised planting of trees, shrubs and herbaceous plants from all over the world in harmony with native woodland and shade-loving plants.
The 20-acre gardens were developed by Edward Walpole, a Dublin businessman who acquired the property in 1868. They contain more than 5,000 different species, including an extensive collection of rhododendrons, azaleas, magnolias and camellias.
The Jays say that without support from the relevant authorities "it will become increasingly untenable for us to maintain the gardens to their present high standard of excellence and keep them open to the public as a valuable local amenity and national treasure".
Brian Stokes, who has owned Inchinappa for 15 years, could not be contacted.