Cork's Paul Street bookstore is set for cafe use

A former bookshop in Cork City centre has permission to be changed to a cafe/restaurant, following a recent planning decision.

PLANNING NOTES

Trustees of the Cork Catholic Diocese applied in February for the change-of-use of the ground floor of the building, on Rory Gallagher Place. It was previously Connolly’s Bookshop, and is next to the Paul Street Shopping Centre. The proposal also included plans to build a single-storey rear extension.

Following further information, which was provided a month ago, in response to a request from Cork City Council’s planning department, the application has been approved with eight conditions attached.

Permission has been granted for the development of a new Central Mental Hospital in Portrane, Co Dublin.

An Bord Pleanala handled the application of the Health Service Executive directly, as a strategic infrastructural development, rather than the plans going to Fingal County Council, the relevant local authority.

In September, the application was formally lodged for the works, on the grounds of St Ita’s Hospital, to include construction of a 170-bedroom, national forensic mental-health service hospital to replace the existing facilities, in Dundrum, in south Dublin. As well as the 130-bedroom hospital, the application was for a 10-bedroom, forensic child-and-adolescent mental-health unit and a 30-bedroom, intensive care rehabilitation unit, all in 10 main buildings within a single campus, on 13 acres of the 280-acre St Ita’s site.

In accordance with its inspector’s recommendation, the board has granted permission with conditions to the plans, which had been amended by significant further information from the HSE, in February.

Dublin City Council has granted permission for a six-storey retail-and-office building with more than twice the floorspace of the existing building, on the city centre site in Dawson Street.

An Taisce’s appeal, regarding the decision, means a final outcome on the proposal by Green Reit (Dawson Street) Ltd will not now be known until later this year.

In March, the company lodged the plans to demolish the existing, five-storey office-and-retail/commercial building, bound by Dawson Street and Molesworth Street, with a gross floor area of 5,100 square metres. The plan was to build a new, six-storey development, with ground-floor and lower ground-floor shop of 2,147sq m and a ground-floor cafe/restaurant, with offices on the upper floors, all with a gross floor area of 12,756sq m.

The council gave its approval, subject to over a dozen conditions, at the end of April, but the third-party apeal was received by An Bord Pleanala late last month.

Permission has been received for new indoor and outdoor leisure facilities in the west Cork town of Clonakilty.

Cork County Council has approved the plans, for a site at Cloheen, where Clonakilty Park Cinema Ltd sought permission, in March, for a single-storey, ten-pin bowling alley with six lanes.

The application also included an outdoor sky-trekking centre for aerial rope trekking, with elevated platforms and a wooden climbing tower. The plans also featured a laser tag course on two-thirds of an acre, with wooden structures, pavings and pathways.

Schools and local residents are among the appelants in a recent planning approval for a drive-through McDonald’s restaurant, a cafe, and a health and fitness studio in Greystones, Co Wicklow.

McDonalds Restaurants of Ireland submitted plans, last November, to Wicklow County Council, for part of the Blacklion Centre. The application was for the cafe, health-and-fitness studio, and a commercial unit in a building of part-single and part-two-storeys, as well as a two-storey drive-through restaurant. After further information was granted in April, the planning authority gave conditional permission early last month.

The application has been the subject of eight third-party appeals, three from schools, one from a parents’ association and another by a residents’ group, and An Bord Pleanala has until mid-September to issue its decision on the file.

A Supermacs drive-through restaurant appears to be proposed for Cork’s Lower Glanmire Road, in a recent application to the city council.

Pat McDonagh, Atlantic Enterprises, is the listed applicant for the works, at Tivoli, detailed in a late-May application. It is planned to demolish an existing, dilapidated building and to build a two-storey restaurant with a takeaway element and drive-through, with car parking, footpaths and other works also provided for in the proposal.