Utility Poles/Lines Visually Destroying Irish Towns?
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Is it just me or are towns all over Ireland being visually ruined by masses of ESB/utility poles and wires? In the town where I live, a beautiful 18th century building was restored and repainted and would look spectacular if not for the wooden ESB pole outside the main entrance and the 34 (yes THIRTY FOUR) wires and cables entering it from all sides. The upper floors of the building are essentially hidden by this spagetti junction effect.
How comes there is little if any consideration by councils and UDCs to get this blight off the street scapes? I have lost count of Irish towns which are ruined by this utility blight. What is the ESB/Telecoms resposibility in all this? Do they charge towns a kings randsom to move the utilites behind the buildings or underground? Seems to me that the ESB/Telecoms are failing to live up to a social and enviornmental responsibility if they just run cables along streets and collect the money. Where is the planning regulations on this? Seems to me it’s a complete free for all.
People on Archiseek quite rightly make so much of one-off houses destroying our countryside and their overall enviornmental impact, but I feel this issue is just as bad and is essentially ignored or tolerated. A town restoration/beautifacation programme should of been part of the National Development Plan.
Many Irish towns and vilages are untapped architectural and historical gems hidden behind a mess of utility cables and poles. It’s just another form of pollution AFAIC and it seems to be getting worse.
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Came across another beauty this afternoon. How Irish is this…
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It wasn’t a Kings Ransom but some years back I ended up at end of a certain telecoms bullying tactic.
Had a single phone line from apex to a pole outside my property. New development started on adjoining land and my single wire interferred with trucks etc. getting in. To cut to chase, their solution was indeed to go underground but muppet here had to pay for this and right up to existing pole outside my land which thankfully I had leave of way on. If I did not pay for this then their bully solution was to put two more huge poles in my garden…..even uglier and with more supporting lines off them. A small example but this was the bully attitide I got…pay up or we will make it worse…….. about 500 quid…not much but thats their attitude -
Someone go into Cobh and take a picture looking down the hill towards the Cathedral down that street. Bloody disgrace the wires are.
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Irish towns are slowly waking up to this problem, as at last we’re beginning to see lines being sunk as part of improvement works in various places, particularly on main streets. Dundalk has been particularly proactive in this respect over the past five years or so – the town is gradually being ‘undergrounded’ as the process is called, with Park Street the most recent to be swept clean of them, where they were frankly hideously ugly, mounted on thick steel poles. In more rural settings the wires can often have a certain charm to them, especially the lopsided ‘telegraph’ posts and 1970s lamppost heads tacked atop them, but they’re generally more preferable towards the fringes of these towns and villages.
Who exactly pays for undergrounding, I do not know, but the result can remarkable. It’s well worth the investment upon seeing the undulating rooftops of vernacular streetscapes uncompromised for the first time in 80 years. The downside is that we now a clearer view of all those PVC windows :rolleyes:
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You are right that result can be remarkable…. I know i ended up paying for the re-do underground but it did improve the whole area. my rant was just on the way I was bullied but as I say some years ago so hopefully
it a one off muppet I came across… -
@samuel j wrote:
so hopefully it a one off muppet I came across…
No, it’s not a one-off, I’ve heard it’s quite regular. I had a major job done in my former house, mainly demolition of crappy extensions, so had to have the ESB disconnected. When builder needed reconnection, the ESB maintained it was a “new†connection and held out for appropriate fee. Being a customer at that address for 20-odd years did not count. My choice was a generator while I fought them (and probably lose my builder) or pay up ..think it was about Euro1500. I chose the latter, had a trench dug and was able to get them to put the cable underground, despite their major moan about the distance. It was worth it aesthetically, but the attitude and cost annoyed me!
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Poles and wired certainly are a bitch when trying to get a photo of a building. The poles themselves are very ugly too, and often a pain in the arse when negociating narrow footpaths.
I wonder what the politicians would do without poles to hand their delightful posters from?
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…and birds like sitting on the wires and aiming messy ‘missiles’ at unsuspecting pedestrians,where would they go?
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A few other elegant examples in Dundalk.
(let’s not mention the repro Georgian sashes with horns)
In fairness to planners and councillors, as far as I recall these wires have been noted as being particularly insensitive, located in what is one of the architecturally richest areas of any town in the country. Hopefully a schedule of works for their removal has been put in place.
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Good thread.
I think this is one of my favorites – Nelson St, Dublin1 (off Eccles St)… A spider of wires grows out above right of the fanlight 😮
Other than that, I am happy to state that these houses appear reasonably well maintained – in fact Nelson St in general isnt too bad, despite the fact that DCC doesnt have half of them listed.:eek: 🙁
(Theyre all late Georgian btw)
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Bloody Poles.
Coming over here and cluttering up our streets.:p
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The midlands Georgian town Birr put a lot of its wires underground some years ago afaik.
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However bad it is in Ireland it is ten times worse in Japan. Flick through any book of japanese architecture and it wont be long before you come across a picture filled with power lines.
I’d upload more, but I’m on dial-up.
Good ol’ dial-up.
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