Re: Re: Irish say no to PVC windows
Old building in the Market Square in Blessington, Co. Wicklow, 2004. Again, miserably sized picture and you can just about see the sashes – and no additional photos.
But it’s really had a bollocking now.
Prior to work (my pic)
And look at the numbskull 1970s-style rear extension that’s been added along with the PVC, destroying the vernacular form of the building ….. and this just last year to a prominently-sited building in the market square of a town!
It’s wild out there. In the regions, there seems to be a special planning rule that doesn’t appear in any development plan or planning act : if the local building owner wants to invest in his/her building, you bloody well let them do so, in whatever way they see fit …
At the other end of the Square in Blessington, there is a similar vernacular-Georgian building, marked over on the left.
Here it is in a 1960s picture.
And here it is as recorded by the NIAH in 2004, with PVC Georgian windows.
The building has just been refurbished. Great – an opportunity then to remove the plastic windows and reinstate accurate replicas of the original painted timber sash windows, thus restoring the integrity of the building, right?
Unfortunately not. Cheap flap stained-timber mock-sashes have just been put in.
What’s the problem Wicklow County Council? You’ve had 7 years now to write Protected Structures and Archit. Conservation Areas in your Development Plan, yet these two significant vernacular buildings in the middle of Blessington have been fouled up within the past year – at least I’m assuming that a lack of P&D Act 2000 protection is why this has happened.
But even if they are not protected, the civilised thing to do now when these type of older buildings come up for repair is to ensure that features and character is appropriately restored – and god knows we can afford to do that these days – and that new extensions are sympathetic, yet all the wrong things have just happened …. It is shameful. What is your policy on older buildings, Wicklow?
