CHAPTER 9 LANDSCAPE AND GREEN INFRASTRUCTURE Landscape and Green Infrastructure Chapter 9 Landscape and Green Infrastructure advantages that the landscape and natural Aim: To protect, conserve and environment of the County can offer, enhance the character, quality, and including the protection of biodiversity, value of the County’s landscape, in drainage/flood management, far reaching conjunction with recognition and benefits such as reducing the effects of support for the role of green climate change. infrastructure as a natural resource in the landscape, capable of 9.1 Policy Context delivering a wide range of The key legislative and policy context for environmental and quality of life landscape and green infrastructure that benefits, including climate change informed this chapter of the Plan includes adaptation. (inter alia): ▪ National Landscape Strategy for Ireland 2015-2025, Department of 9.0 Introduction Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht Despite being the second smallest county in ▪ Draft Landscape and Landscape Ireland, Carlow contains significant areas of Assessment Guidelines for Planning landscape importance, ranging from Authorities 2000, Department of the mountains, hills, rolling farmland, river Environment and Local Government valleys, and woodlands. These areas not only ▪ Planning and Development Act 2000 have an intrinsic value as places of natural (as amended) and scenic beauty, but also as a real asset for ▪ Historic Landscape Characterisation in residents and visitors alike, affording quality Ireland, Best Practice Guidance, The of life and economic benefits, with Heritage Council 2013 opportunities for outdoor recreation, tourism, ▪ Guidelines for Landscape and Visual and other uses. The County’s landscape is a Impact Assessment, Third Edition, UK, significant part of peoples’ lives, contributing Routledge Landscape Institute, LI, and to a sense of place and identity, and is the Institute of Environmental backdrop to which all change takes place. Management and Assessment, IEMA, (2013). The interconnected network of land and ▪ EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 water contained within the landscape of the ▪ Building a Green Infrastructure for County, including (inter alia) its open spaces, Europe, European Commission, 2013 farmland, rivers, woodlands, wetlands, ▪ Creating Green Infrastructure for wildlife habitats and protected areas, can also Ireland, Enhancing Natural Capital for be considered as a form of infrastructure, Human Wellbeing, Comhar which can provide natural solutions for the Sustainable Development Council, achievement of economic, social, educational 2010 and ecological benefits. This infrastructure is a vital component in understanding the Draft Carlow County Development Plan 2022-2028 208 | P a g e Landscape and Green Infrastructure ▪ Integrating Ecosystem Approaches, contribution of the past to the landscape, and Green Infrastructure and Spatial therefore it’s historical value as a social Planning, EPA, 2012 resource and record of human history. The ▪ National Biodiversity Action Plan importance of history and of heritage is 2017-2021 reflected in the definition of landscape in the ▪ Green Infrastructure: A ‘How To’ Heritage Act 1995, which states that it Guide for Disseminating and includes “areas, sites, vistas and features of Integrating the Concept into Spatial significant scenic, archaeological, geological, Planning Practice, Report No. 182, historical, ecological or other scientific EPA, 2016. interest”. 9.2 Landscape A National Landscape Strategy for Ireland 2015-2025 was published by the Department In 2000 the Department of the Environment of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht. A key Heritage and Local Government published function of the Strategy has been to ensure ‘Draft Landscape and Landscape Assessment compliance with the ELC, and to establish Guidelines for Planning Authorities’. The principles for protecting and enhancing Guidelines aimed “to heighten awareness of landscape while positively managing its the importance of landscape in all aspects of change. physical planning, to provide guidance to planners and to others as to how landscape The importance of landscape and visual considerations should be dealt with and to amenity at a national level, and the role of indicate specific requirements for planning in its protection, is also recognised in Development Plans and for development the Planning and Development Act 2000 (as control”. amended). The ELC definition of landscape Ireland subsequently signed and ratified the has been included in the Planning and Council of Europe’s European Landscape Development Act 2000 (as amended). The Act Convention (ELC) in 2002, also known as the requires that development plans contain Florence Convention. The ELC came into particular objectives relating to landscape, force in 2004 and promotes the protection, including ‘relevant policies or management and planning of European objectives…relating to providing a framework landscapes, and organises European co- for identification, assessment, protection, operation on landscape issues. For the ELC management and planning of landscapes landscape means “an area, as perceived by having regard to the European Landscape people, whose character is the result of the Convention’. action and interaction of natural and/or human factor”. In 2013, the Heritage Council, in recognition of landscape as a cornerstone of our history and heritage, published ‘Best Practice Guidance for Historic Landscape Characterisation in Ireland’. The purpose of the guidance is to inform the development of landscape policy in terms of identifying the Draft Carlow County Development Plan 2022-2028 209 | P a g e Landscape and Green Infrastructure 9.3 Landscape Character Assessment specific features that often contain more significant and sensitive landscapes that are An important tool for understanding and highly valued for scenery and amenity. articulating the character of a landscape is Identified as Landscape Types, these features, Landscape Character Assessment (LCA). LCA numbering seven in total, include: assists in identifying features in both urban and rural environments that give localities a ▪ Broad River Valley sense of place, and in pinpointing what makes ▪ Narrow River Valley them different from neighbouring areas so as ▪ Built Up Areas to appropriately guide and manage change. ▪ Farmed Lowland The existing LCA for the County, which was ▪ Farmed Ridges included with the previous County ▪ Rolling Rough Grazing Development Plan, has been carried through ▪ Uplands to this Plan (See Appendix VII), but with some The four Landscape Character Areas, including minor amendments made to its format and the Landscape Types they contain, are shown layout for ease of reference. The LCA is an on Map 9.1 and 9.2. The LCAs are important resource for the Council, and an summarised as follows: extremely useful tool that should be used by agents/applicants when preparing planning Blackstairs and Mount Leinster Uplands applications. It gives guidance and advice on The Mount Leinster/ Blackstairs Landscape key characteristics of the County’s landscape Character Area is situated on the eastern side and how sensitive it is to change, addressing of the County along the border with County issues such as land cover, topography, Wexford. It is dominated by the uplands of geology, soils, settlements, and historical the Blackstairs Mountains and Mount landscapes. Leinster, which extend as a distinct ridgeline 9.4 County Landscape Character Areas for c. 25km northwards from the border with and Landscape Types Wexford. Mount Leinster is largely located in Wexford; however, the western slopes are in The Landscape Character Assessment for County Carlow. The slopes of the mountain Carlow groups and maps the landscapes of descend westwards on to an undulating the County into four major Landscape landscape, which converges with the Character Areas, and includes detailed landscape of the Central Lowlands landscape recommendations for their management, character area. protection and conservation. The Landscape Character Areas include: In terms of natural attributes and scenery, this character area is the most important in ▪ Blackstairs and Mount Leinster the County and is as such highly sensitive to Uplands change. This particularly applies to the ▪ Central Lowlands uplands/mountains whereas the farmed ▪ River Slaney/East Rolling Farmland ridges and rolling rough grazing types would ▪ Killeshin Hills be moderately sensitive. The Landscape Character Areas were subject The Blackstairs and Mount Leinster Uplands to a more detailed analysis to give recognition contains the following Landscape Types: to specific landscape features. It is these Draft Carlow County Development Plan 2022-2028 210 | P a g e Landscape and Green Infrastructure uplands/mountains, rolling rough grazing, dominating backdrop to the area with quite farmed ridges, narrow river valley. high mountains to the immediate east. Central Lowlands Much of the landscape character is relatively The central lowlands landscape character area intact and is representative of a well-managed occupies a substantial portion of the County agricultural landscape. There is potential for and includes the County’s major settlements. the disturbance of landscape character The landscape is primarily rural, with medium through the construction of inappropriately to quite large fields defined by well sited and designed one-off housing in the maintained and generally low hedges and countryside and through inappropriate