Planning refused for Cookstown developments

SOUTH Dublin County Council has refused planning permission for two significant mixed housing and commercial developments in the Cookstown Industrial Estate, The Echo has learned.

Lodged as part of the Cookstown Regeneration, the first planning application refused permission provided for 184 apartments at a site located beside the Cookstown Luas Stop while the second sought permission for 246 apartments within two separate buildings at a location on Fourth Avenue – which lies near the rear entrance to Tallaght Hospital.

Each application also provides for commercial units, community rooms, creches, landscaped courtyards and underground carparking.

A third application was due to be lodged for a final, mixed-use development in the coming weeks, which is proposed for a site on the Cookstown Road, to the rear of the Belgard Luas Stop. 

This week, however, the council has refused planning permission to the first two applications – with details of the local authority’s decision not published online at the time of The Echo going to print.

Over recent weeks, the proposed regeneration of Cookstown has been met with mixed emotions, as some welcomed the possibility of new homes while others expressed frustration over “the scale” of the development.

Concerns raised included a lack of schooling in the area, traffic congestion, on-street parking, the height and scale of development, density, additional pressures on the local Garda and fire stations and the “oversupply and high levels of unfinished and unoccupied apartments in general”.

However, it is yet unknown what considerations county planners reached their decision on.

Speaking with The Echo on Wednesday evening, as news broke of the refusal, Tallaght Central Fianna Fail councillor Charlie O’Connor said: “I am still unaware of the council’s reasons for refusing planning permission and I think like myself, a lot of people will be taking some time to read through the decision once they are made available.

“I have requested that those decisions are made available, at the very latest, to councillors at this Thursday’s (September 15) Tallaght Area Committee Meeting.”

While the council has published its decision to “refuse permission” on the planning section of its website, the reasons for that decision have not yet been uploaded.