I’m doing a couple of two storey designs at the moment (which incidentally are a perfectly legitimate and traditional house form in the Irish countryside) but there seems to be a planning policy that any elevated or even slightly elevated is required to have a ‘single storey’ design only.

Now sometimes this may be understood but the planning policy makes no sense when the neighbours have two storey designs (which would make a single storey alongside look odd) and even crazier when you consider what is currently planned for the Mayo countryside:

The EirGrid Grid West Electricity Transmission scheme brings 300 45m high pylons carrying 400KV lines right across Mayo.

The photo below (Credit: Laura Kirwan) gives you an idea of how high these pylons are in relation to a standard 2 storey house. Incidentally the pylons completely bypass the normal planning procedure:

Crazy.