RESIDENTS of the Gasworks development in Ringsend, Dublin 4 have appealed to An Bord Pleanála saying the proposal to turn an apartment building in their complex into a 520-bed hotel would ruin the peaceful enjoyment of their development.

Developer Liam Carroll got planning permission from Dublin City Council last month to turn the Alliance Building into a hotel despite 52 objections. The 210 apartments in the nine-storey cyclindrical building have been vacant since they went on sale two years ago and failed to sell in sufficient numbers to make the scheme viable. Residents of the Gasworks say that the hotel would be too big in a residential complex and would compromise the current mix of uses decided upon in a long planning process "undertaken to establish a compatible mix of uses and coherent land strategy for the successful Gasworks development".

They say the proposed bar leads directly out onto the common pedestrian area of the apartment complex and say apartment owners are required to maintain common areas and gardens "while hotel guests will have the benefit of these and will be free to roam around the complex".