Developer lodges plans for 420 apartments on Bessborough site
Estuary View Enterprises has lodged two separate files with An Bord Pleanála seeking planning permission to construct a total of 420 apartments plus a café and creche on the site in Blackrock under the process for strategic housing developments. File picture: Laura Hutton/RollingNews.ie
A development firm, which has launched fresh applications seeking to build more than 400 apartments on parts of the former Bessborough estate in Cork, consulted with former residents of the mother and baby home about its plans.
Estuary View Enterprises has lodged two separate files with An Bord Pleanála seeking planning permission to construct a total of 420 apartments plus a café and creche on the site in Blackrock under the process for strategic housing developments.
One project entails the construction of 280 buy-to-sell apartments in four blocks ranging from six to 10 storeys in height, while the other provides for 140 buy-to-sell apartments in three blocks up to five storeys in height.
The company said it consulted with the Cork Survivors and Supporter Alliance (CSSA) in advance of submitting the latest applications as it recognised the sensitivities associated with the legacy of the former mother and baby home.
As a result, it said it had a greater understanding of the alliance’s concerns and ambitions for the wider Bessborough estate, including the view that no development should take place on a site that is believed to be the location of a children’s burial ground.
In a file submitted to the board, Estuary View Enterprises said the CSSA has no objection to the principle of the proposed developments as it recognised the lands are not located on the documented children’s burial ground in another part of the estate under different ownership.
The company said it had taken “a robust approach” to consideration of the findings of the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes.
It observed there was no evidence to suggest there were any burials on the lands they are seeking to develop.
The company said it believed the lands were similar in profile to other lands within the former 200-acre estate that had been successfully developed.
However, it said it would recommend a programme of archaeological supervision and monitoring of all groundworks should be undertaken by a suitably qualified forensic archaeologist “as part of a precautionary approach”.
It said forensic monitoring of the development would be “independent and beyond reproach”.
Estuary View Enterprises said it also had plans for a third phase of development as part of a masterplan for lands to the south and west of Bessborough House, which would include a new neighbourhood park.
Last year, An Bord Pleanála refused planning permission for two proposed housing developments on the Bessborough estate by a different developer, MWB Two, comprising 246 units and a creche.
It rejected an application for 179 homes on the basis it was not satisfied the location did not contain a children’s burial ground associated with the use of the Bessborough Mother and Baby Home between 1922 and 1998.
It refused MWB Two’s subsequent application to build 67 apartments on a nearby site on the basis it would result in haphazard development by creating an isolated apartment block in a protected landscape.
A ruling on the latest applications by Estuary View Enterprises is due before the end of July.
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