Plans for a £3 million holiday village at Ventry Strand in Co Kerry, consisting of 58 two-storey houses, a bar, restaurant, health centre and tennis courts, have provoked objections.
Kerry County Council's decision to grant planning permission for the scheme on June 20th, seven weeks after the initial application was made, has been appealed to An Bord Pleanala by numerous objectors determined to defeat it.
They maintain the proposed development on a 50-acre site at the strand's edge would destroy the area and dilute the Corca Dhuibhne Gaeltacht, described as "the last bastion of Munster Irish".
There is anger over the council's decision to grant permission despite the 27 objections, including one letter signed by 41 people. Although such submissions are meant to be confidential, many of the names were published in the Kerryman on May 30th.
Mr Michael Kavanagh, a Dingle businessman who is also a road contractor for the county council, lodged the planning application. He was acting on behalf of Ventry Holdings, whose affairs are dealt with by a Dublin-based solicitor.
Objectors claim the scheme is contrary to the council plan, which says there should be "no disfigurement or injury" to the landscape, "particularly along the coastline".
The Ventry site is in a pivotal position, midway along the horseshoe-shaped sweep of strand. Part of it lies in a natural heritage area, though this designation is in draft form and, like other NHAs, awaits formal confirmation.
In a letter to the council, one of the objectors said the holiday homes would "desecrate" the amenity because it would be "highly visible from all areas of the parish and the bay, spoiling the visual approach to Ventry, Slea Head and the Blasket Islands".
Two-storey houses would be "completely out of character" with the local architecture and the proposed cluster of 58 units, catering for a potential population of 232, was tantamount to urban development which would "eclipse" the scale of Ventry village.
At present, the village consists of about 30 houses gathered around a green, with a school, post office, pub, restaurant, art gallery and some bungalows on the approach roads. It is part of the designated Corca Dhuibhne Gaeltacht.
There is also concern that the proposed holiday home development would "alter the balance against the Irish language" in the area and undermine local bedand-breakfast houses which cater for students studying the language during the summer.
But the principal objection is that it would be a "visual scar on the beautiful curved expanse of Ventry Strand". Opponents also say an environmental impact statement should have accompanied the planning application.
All of the land around Ventry Harbour was a designated high amenity area until 1986 when Mr Kavanagh succeeded in having his 50-acre holding rezoned for development. This paved the way for permission to be granted in 1991 for a hotel and 60 holiday homes.
But funding for this scheme was never put in place and the permission has since expired. Ventry Holdings maintains that the latest plan is merely a revised version of the 1991 scheme but objectors say it must be treated as a new application.
What worries them is not just the "visual intrusion" of the current plan, but also the precedent it would create. "Many more owners are hopeful that their land on the seaward side of the road could also be rezoned for commercial gain," one warned the county council.
Dr Albert Schumacher, Swiss director of Intire, the International Tourists and Friends of Ireland, said Ventry Strand was an important natural heritage area "internationally known as one of the few remaining unspoiled walking beaches in Ireland".
In a letter to the county council, he said this "is what the tourists seek in Ireland and what makes all the difference for them, not agglomerations of sterile holiday homes, clubhouses and tennis courts which they can find in abundance elsewhere and are sick of it".
Mr Antonio Fazio, an Italian stone carver living in Ventry since 1991, said it would be an "environmental disaster" for the Dingle penninula. "For 40 years, I witnessed the overbearing and arrogant destruction in Sicily . . . I left with a broken heart", he added.
