Green light for Dingle project

DESPITE claims the centre of Dingle could become a “ghost town”, An Bord Pleanála has given the green light for a multi-million-euro development at the eastern side of the tourist haven.

Dingle-based supermarket chain owner Tomás Garvey, of the Garvey Group, and Bricklin have been granted planning permission for a shopping, residential and parking complex at Mail Road and Emlagh Road.

The two-floor complex will have 2,529 square metres of floor space, including six shops and a cafe, as well as a Garvey’s Supervalu store, which it is proposed to relocate from its current site at Holyground, Dingle.

Bricklin owns two-thirds of the land at Emlagh West, Dingle.

There will also be 312 car parking spaces, while Mr Garvey, who owns about a third of the 2.27 hectares, plans to build 32 apartments, terraced houses and maisonettes on the site.

An Bord Pleanála has given the go-ahead to the project subject to 32 conditions, which include that 10 houses be restricted to fluent Irish speakers only and no more than 10 houses be used as holiday homes.

The Garvey Group welcomed the granting of permission. Objectors to planning feared the centre of Dingle would become a ghost town if the development went ahead. One, Alan O’Brien, maintained the development would detract from businesses in the centre, with small shops unable to survive because of competition from an out-of-town superstore.

But board inspector Mairead Kenny found in her report that Dingle’s shopping streets were only a few hundred metres from the entrance to the proposed site; the site’s town centre zoning was reasonable; and the residential, retail and parking uses of the development would be “generally compatible with the strengthening of the town’s commercial sector”.

Ms Kenny felt it would not undermine the viability of the town centre, or seriously injure amenities of the areas.

In making their case, the promoters claimed there was a 32% shopping “leakage” from Dingle to other towns, mainly Tralee.