Brian O’Driscoll and Amy Huberman lodge plans to restore home

Brian O’Driscoll and Amy Huberman have received the all clear from their new next-door neighbours for the revamp of their €1.8m dream family home in south Dublin.

Last year, the couple, who wed July 2010, in purchased a Victorian property on the tree-lined Palmerston Road in Rathmines.

The €1.8m that the couple paid for the red-brick home — built between 1863 and 1870 — is less than half the €4.3m the previous owners paid in 2006.

In December, the couple successfully secured permission for an extension to the five-year planning permission attached to the property.

However, the pair have now hired Dublin-based Tyler Owen Architects to lodge completely new plans to restore the protected structure to a single-family residence. The application includes a new three-storey rear extension to replace the existing “non original” two- storey extension and a new single-storey side and rear extension.

The couple and their planning advisers attended a pre-planning consultation meeting with Dublin City Council planners in January.

A handwritten note by a council planner from the meeting states that the return of the building to family use is welcome by Dublin City Council “as it is currently a property which is at risk”.

A report drawn up for the couple by Hughes Planning and Development Consultants confirms that the couple’s new next-door neighbours are “on side” with the plan.

A decision is due to be made on the application in July.