HIGH-RISE AND Donnybrook just don’t seem to go together. Developer Bryan Cullen and businessman John O’Sullivan’s plans for an 11-storey office and residential development in the D4 village have failed to impress Dublin city planners.

The duo had proposed to build an 11-storey office block and an adjoining eight-storey residential building with 22 apartments on the site of the Shell station and the Everready tyre centre. The site, at the junction of Donnybrook Road and Brookvale Road, is across the road from Leinsters Donnybrook rugby ground and overlooks the Donnybrook Tennis Club.

Braver men than Cullen and O’Sullivan have fallen fowl of Donnybrook’s vigorous residents’ associations and the seemingly height-shy planners.

Denis O’Brien’s ambitious plans for a 26-storey tower at the former Bizquip retail outlet cut no ice with the planers. Since then he has been refused for a significantly smaller six-storey office block.

There was no shortage of objectors to Cullen and O’Sullivan’s scheme: 25 parties put pen to paper to voice their concerns about the scheme, including An Taisce, the IRFU, the Eastern Regional Fisheries Board and FG’s Lucinda Creighton.

In its observation, the IRFU raised concerns about the scheme’s energy efficiency and the presence of soil contaminated by fuel storage.

Noting that the applicants “have sought to maximise the speculative quantum of development on the site”, the planning inspector for Dublin City Council ruled that the scheme was “excessive”.