Roscommon County Council has voted to amend the Lough Key development plan to facilitate the construction of a 120-bedroom luxury hotel near the lake.
More than 3,500 people from the Boyle area recently signed a petition in favour of the hotel and spa facility, which is under appeal to An Bord Pleanála.
The three parties who appealed argued that the proposed development at the Rock of Doon near Boyle would be contrary to the Lough Key development plan. However, councillors voted unanimously to vary the plan to allow the hotel to go ahead. This follows a public consultation process during which the council received 354 submissions - 348 of them supporting the proposal to vary the plan.
Following rejection of a number of tourism-related projects around Boyle, a committee was set up to support the development. It argued that long-term unemployment was running at 15 per cent in Boyle, almost four times the national average. It says that while Lough Key Forest Park is getting an €8 million facelift, there is no major hotel in the area to exploit the 100,000 visitors expected to visit the former Rockingham Estate each year.
Earlier this year, Bord Pleanála rejected proposals for a 100-bedroom hotel, an 18-hole golf course and 300 holiday homes at the forest park. It also rejected proposals for 72 holiday homes at Doon, near the site of the proposed hotel.
An Taisce has acknowledged the need for a quality hotel in Boyle, but it has also accused the county council of having "allowed a developer-led scatter-gun approach to development to prevail".
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