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HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

Leitrim was the subject of a major plantation during the reign of James I, resulting in the development of Manorhamilton, Jamestown and Carrick-on-Shannon, which received a Charter in 1613. The town owes its origins to its strategic location crossing the Shannon.

With the development or the Grand Jury system in the early 19th century, the town received a number or public buildings, including a Gaol with Courthouse, which reinforced its importance. The town centre retains a very cohesive 19th century character with a mid 19th century bridge leading to Bridge Street and Main Street. These have two and three storey terraced buildings with natural slate roofs, with extensive survival of timber sash windows and original shop fronts. St. George's Terrace and the adjoining Hatley Manor form a residential enclave, which would have accommodated the more prosperous inhabitants of the town. The early 19th century Church of Ireland church and late 19th century Catholic church attractively dominate the skyline.

In the last decades of the 20th century Carrick-on-Shannon became one of the major centres for the Shannon cruising industry. With a population of approximately 3,000 when Cortoberand the immediate hinterland is taken into account, it ranks as by far the smallest of the Irish County Towns. Like the rest of County Leitrim, its development was largely static in the late 20th century, and such development which did occur was in the form of poorly planned low density suburban type layouts.

THE IMMEDIATE CHALLENGE

Carrick-on-Shannon now faces an enormous challenge because of its current fast growth rate and inclusion in both the Objective 1 BMW Tax Regions and the special Rural Renewal Tax Incentives. It is regrettable that, despite this tax designation, which gives blanket tax relief to a wide category of development, no strategic plan has been drawn up to accommodate the accelerated development of the town. The existing provisions in the Carrick-on-Shannon Development Plan 1997-2002 are inadequate in providing for the large-scale urban expansion which the town is currently facing. This recalls the similar expansion which both Letterkenny and Castlebar underwent during the 1990s and which is now widely recognised to have been unsuccessful in urban design quality and transport planning.

The development challenges in Carrick-on-Shannon are difficult because of the constraints posed by the river and natural flood plain, combined with the unfortunate location of so much low density suburban type housing, which occupies the areas around the town centre, where expansion of higher density land use would have been most appropriate.

The MBNA development on a former flood plain site and providing for up to 700 car parking spaces, as part of its longer term phasing, indicated the scale of the challenge the town was facing by 2000. The Dolan Kelly development on the flood plain between the Dublin Roundabout and river failed to address the fundamental issue of the suitability of the site for any type of development. Equally problematic is the Paul Maye proposal for cinema, retail warehousing and office units on the Leitrim Road. Apart from its poor architectural design, the concern is that the distance of this proposal from the town centre would lead to an alternative car based magnet being created.

Proposals for the Cortober area to Roscommon County Council have also been disappointing in design and lack of integration with anything resembling a co-ordinated overview for the overall development of both river banks. The area marked by the Elphin and Sligo Road Roundabout has been marked by an entirely unsuitable motorway intersection type hotel and cinema development by Capercross Investments Ltd., which was granted planning permission in January, 2001. The inlet to the south of Cortober has been subject to marina and housing proposals, despite the tortuous and inconvenient road access, which cuts a kilometer backwards before reaching a junction point with the road back into Carrick-on-Shannon.

RECOMMENDATIONS

The poor quality and lack of cohesive development strategy qualifying a range of major planning applications for both Carrick-on-Shannon and Cortober, highlights the undesirability of introducing tax incentives without strategic planning guidelines, or, in the case of a town such as Carrick-on-Shannon, an Urban Design Framework Plan.