PLANS FOR an apartment development on the grounds of the Royal Marine Hotel in Dún Laoghaire have been scuppered by An Bord Pleanála.
Hotel owner, William Neville and Sons, has been refused permission to build a six-storey residential and retail development on the hotel’s old surface car-park.
The developer had been looking to build 60 apartments and eight retail units. This request was refused by Dún Laoghaire Rathdown County Council last year on a number of grounds, including poor residential amenity, overlooking and overshadowing and intensification of traffic on Marine Road.
The planning board has upheld this decision, stating that the scheme would harm the setting of the Royal Marine Hotel, which is a listed building.
The hotel, which dates from the 1920s, re-opened for business last year after a €50 million revamp which took three years to complete. This increased the height of the hotel to seven storeys and the number of bedrooms from 108 to 237.
An Bord Pleanála also took exception to the design of the proposed apartments, 25 of which were single aspect and north-facing.
Access to the site from Marine Road immediately adjoins the existing access to the Dún Laoghaire shopping centre multi-storey car-park and could be a “source of confusion for drivers and be contrary to the interests of road safety”, according to the board’s inspector.
Access from Queens Road would be preferable, the inspector added.
