Dublin City Council rejects Wetherspoons sound barrier plan

Dublin City Council has refused planning permission for a sound barrier “taller than the Berlin Wall” for a JD Wetherspoons pub beer garden on Camden Street.

JD Wetherspoon proposed the 43ft high and 26.5ft wide sound barrier to allow it reopen a 244 person capacity beer garden attached to its “super-pub” at the 89 bedroom Keaven’s Port hotel.

In April of last year, the English headquartered pub operator temporarily ceased trading at the beer garden arising from local residents’ complaints over noise levels from its operation.

The planned sound barrier faced strong opposition from parents of children attending an adjacent montessori school, the D2 Creche and Montessori, as well as from local residents. One person living in the area, Suzanne Willoughby, told the council that it makes her angry to think that anyone thinks that building a wall which is taller than the Berlin Wall “is an appropriate solution to squeezing more punters into the pub”.

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Now, in a comprehensive rejection of the scheme, the Council has stated that the sound barrier would create an unacceptably high, solid barrier in an inappropriate material and would seriously injure the architectural character, setting, special interest and amenity of protected structures within the area.

The Council also concluded that the sound barrier “would create an unwelcome precedent for such an unsympathetic intervention”.

One of those to object was Naoise McNally and her husband, well known Trinity College Dublin economist Dr Ronan Lyons, have two small children attending the D2 Creche and Montessori next door to the hotel.

Ms McNally said today: “We are really pleased with the decision. It is great that the council took on board the concerns of the parents but also the residents and business owners of the consequences that a grant of permission for the wall would have unleashed.”

[ Locals oppose Wetherspoon’s proposed sound barrier ‘taller than the Berlin Wall’ ]

The mother of three said: “The enormous scale and its proximity to the creche would have made it really oppressive for the children at the creche and if [it] had come to fruition would have made for a prison-like atmosphere there. For little tiny children, it would have been very unpleasant.”

Ms McNally said: “Childcare in this city is very difficult to come by and such high quality childcare should not be compromised for outdoor drinking for people when we have plenty of that in the city.”

She also said that she hoped that JD Wetherspoon would not appeal the refusal to An Bord Pleanála.