Creeslough families object to planning board on decision to redevelop site of 'mass tragedy'

Permission was granted last month by Donegal County Council to Vivo Shell to build a new service station at the site. Picture: NW Newspix

Family and relatives of the 10 people who died as a result of the 2022 Creeslough explosion in Donegal have objected to An Bord Pleanála on plans to rebuild the service station that exploded in the tragedy.

An appeal was lodged with the planning body by 10 of those affected by the catastrophic explosion at an apartment complex above the Applegreen service station in Creeslough on October 7, 2022.

Ten people died in the disaster, with a further eight hospitalised.

Permission was granted last month by Donegal County Council to Vivo Shell to build a new service station at the site, including a series of 10 lights to commemorate those who lost their lives.

That application had been met with a plethora of objections from people affected by the tragedy, for reasons varying from the perceived insensitivity to the tragedy itself to the suggestion the ongoing investigation into the disaster could be compromised.

There have been five people arrested to date as part of that investigation, though no charges have as yet been brought.

In lodging their appeal, the 10 — including the parents and siblings of 14-year-old Leona Harper who died in the tragedy — the group noted that it was “against public policy to rebuild a development where a mass tragedy has occurred”.

“Both the Stardust Nightclub and the Grenfell Tower were never rebuilt, and the explosion in Creeslough is akin to those tragedies,” the group said.