Planning board refuses 140 new homes on site overlooking Blarney Castle due to traffic hazard

The commission said the plans for the strategic housing development of 105 houses and 38 apartments, as well as a creche at Monacnapa, Blarney, failed to provide adequate accessible, inclusive, and comfortable access for pedestrians and cyclists.

More than 140 new homes on the outskirts of Blarney have been refused by An Coimisiún Pleanála over concerns the development would pose a serious traffic hazard.

The commission said the plans for the strategic housing development of 105 houses and 38 apartments, as well as a creche at Monacnapa, Blarney, failed to provide adequate accessible, inclusive, and comfortable access for pedestrians and cyclists.

It was proposed that the new housing development on a 7.8-hectare site, which overlooks Blarney Castle, would be accessed from a steep narrow road off the Blarney Inner Relief Road, which also currently serves two other small housing estates.

The commission found that the developer, Eoin Sheehan, had also provided inadequate justification for the type of housing mix proposed so that the plans represented a material contravention of the Cork City Development Plan 2022-2028.

It said the project also failed to comply with the requirement to provide a minimum of one electric vehicle-equipped parking space per five parking spaces.

Road safety risk

Cork City Council had also recommended planning be refused, including that it posed a road safety risk that was “unacceptable and cannot be mitigated”.

Council planners noted that the plans were “haphazard in nature” as they failed to address the topography of the site satisfactorily, while the proposed densities were also considered inappropriate.

The developer had proposed an upgrade to the existing access road, which also services Sunberry Heights and Sunberry Drive, including a widening of a footpath.

A planning inspector with An Coimisiún Pleanála said she also agreed that the risk posed by using the proposed access road with a substandard gradient was unacceptable.

Impact on landscape

However, the inspector said she did not believe the development would have been overly obtrusive, including in relation to Blarney Castle, and felt it would be “no more visible than the adjoining residential development and other development in the vicinity”. 

She also concluded that it would not have impacted on tourism levels within Blarney.

A total of 32 third-party submissions on the project were received by the commission, many of which were from residents of the nearby Sunberry Drive and Sunberry Heights estates.

Blarney Castle Estates submitted a report which focused on the development’s impact on the landscape.

However, the commission said it received four submissions in favour of the project with supporters claiming there was a massive shortage of new houses being built in Blarney.

Prior setbacks

Its ruling is the latest in a series of setbacks to try and develop the elevated site for housing.

In July 2022, the commission approved a similar proposal by Mr Sheehan for 105 houses and 32 apartments on the same site as well as the demolition of existing buildings, despite a recommendation by Cork City Council that planning permission should be refused because it would create an “unacceptable” risk in terms of road safety.

However, its decision was quashed by the High Court in May 2024 as a result of judicial review proceedings with the application remitted back to the commission for fresh consideration.

The commission’s predecessor, An Bord Pleanála, refused planning permission for a development of 150 housing units on the same site in December 2020 due to the excessive density of the proposal.

Prior to boundary changes with local authorities, Cork County Council had rejected plans to build 133 homes on the site in May 2009 because the development would be visually obtrusive, particularly in relation to views from Blarney Castle, as well as over concerns of flooding.