Planning consultant slams hospital proposal

CLARE County Council has come under fire for giving the go-ahead to contentious plans for a €40 million hospital in Ennis.

In his closing submission at a Bord Pleanála oral hearing into the 100-bed hospital proposal, planning consultant Brendan McGrath said the council’s interpretation of its own development plan “amounts to a judgment that a 100-bed hospital could be located on any land zoned for development within the settlement boundary of the town”.

“The council appears to treat a hospital as an intensive form of land use that could go anywhere in the greater Ennis area,” he told the hearing at the Temple Gate Hotel in Ennis. “Such an approach does not accord with broader principles of urban design and sustainable settlement planning.”