€41m retail project permission appealed

A decision to grant planning permission for a scaled-down €41m retail project on a site designated as an area of “high landscape value” straddling the Cork city and county boundary has been appealed to An Bord Pleanála.

Several local residents and An Taisce have appealed Cork County Council’s decision to give conditional permission for a mixed retail development and linear park behind the Fox and Hounds pub in Ballyvolane.

An Taisce said its appeal is based on what it claims are deficiencies in the developer’s environmental impact statement, its concerns about the project’s impact on the ecology on the Glen River Valley, deficient access arrangements, breaches of the Department of the Environment’s Retail Planning Guidelines 2012, and what it said is the project’s failure to comply with the department’s Smarter Travel Policy.