Contentious plans to develop a tourist cave near Doolin have been put on hold by Clare County Council with the local authority expressing a number of concerns over the proposal. Gordon Deegan reports.
Last August, John and Helen Browne of Ardeamish, Lisdoonvarna, lodged plans with the council for the third time in 12 years to develop Pol an Ionain Cave, which reputedly contains the largest free-hanging stalactite in the world.
Already, the Brownes have secured planning permission twice from the council to proceed with the plan. However, they have not gone ahead with it, due in the first instance to a High Court dispute with a local farmer and on the second occasion not being able to complete an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the plan for An Bord Pleanála.
Now in a scaled down version of the original plan, the Brownes are seeking to develop the cave for tourists, but make no provision for a visitor centre or a car-park on site that was in the original proposal.
The council has expressed concern that the baseline environmental data lodged with the plan "is fundamentally flawed and is not an actual baseline of the cave environment as it was".
The council has also expressed reservations over the Brownes' "conservative" visitor estimate for the proposal and has requested the applicants to lodge a detailed business plan which will involve realistic visitor figures; assess the cave's future market potential; the need for a comprehensive marketing plan to ensure the continued viability of the project and a contingency plan in the event of a failure by the cave to operate as a tourist attraction.