Frank Lawrence Benson, who died on January 6th aged 62, was a prolific planning consultant and former chairman of An Bord Pleanala and the Custom House Docks Development Authority. Shrewd and well-informed, he was one of the best in the business.
He was never intimidated by the cut-and-thrust of the planning arena and marshalled favourable arguments on behalf of his many private-sector clients in a cogent and lucid fashion, drawing on his extensive years of experience and knowledge of planning law, procedures and practices.
He was born in Ballyhaunis, Co Mayo, on November 30th, 1938, to Eileen and Tom Benson. His father was one of the first members of the newly-formed Civic Guard (later the Garda Siochana) established in 1922. Frank Benson was educated at the Christian Brothers in Ennistymon and UCG, where he obtained a degree in civil engineering. He also received diplomas from UCC and UCD. After qualifying as a town planner, he worked for the Irish Development Authority, Cork County Council and Dublin Corporation.
Frank Benson was among Ireland's most successful planning consultants. One of his advantages was his many years of experience working at very senior levels in the public sector, notably in two successive chief executive posts.
After An Bord Pleanala was reconstituted in 1984, he became the first non-High Court judge to chair it. Two years later, he took over as executive chairman of the Custom House Docks Development Authority, with a mandate to develop the International Financial Services Centre.
He steered that project with single-minded determination, showing little tolerance for what he regarded as political interference. He ultimately lost the support of the authority's Fianna Fail-dominated board over plans to construct a fourth office block in the first phase.
Three years earlier, in 1987, he was dismayed by what he saw as a high-handed decision by the then Taoiseach, Charles J. Haughey, to locate the Irish Museum of Modern Art in the Royal Hospital, Kilmainham, rather than the still-derelict Stack A warehouse on the docks site. He was regarded as close to the development consortium headed by Mark Kavanagh, of Hardwicke Ltd, which in 1987 had won the £200 million contract to redevelop the Custom House Docks. u100,000 to Mr Haughey in 1989.
In May 1990, Frank Benson resigned as the CHDDA's chairman. Shortly afterwards, he returned to the private sector where he had cut his teeth with Robin Power in the early 1980s as planning adviser on such projects as the Powerscourt Townhouse centre in Dublin.
His firm, Frank L. Benson and Partners, acted as planning consultants for several controversial schemes, including a proposed leisure resort at Durrow Abbey, Co Offaly - the developer recently withdrew his planning application under fire from outraged conservationists.
The firm frequently acted for Treasury Holdings, most prominently on its highly contentious master plan for Spencer Dock, in the Dublin Docklands, which was turned down by An Bord Pleanala last July, and on the Hilton (now Westin) Hotel scheme for the edge of College Green.
Other Treasury projects on which Frank Benson advised included the replacement of Pelican House, a distinguished early 1960s building on Mespil Road, with a much larger office block and a number of wind-farm schemes, such as the failed plan for 13 turbines near Macroom, Co Cork.
Frank Benson again found himself in the firing line as planning consultant for a scheme of more than 400 suburban houses in Ballymore Eustace, Co Kildare, which ran into intense local opposition. This, too, was overturned on appeal by An Bord Pleanala, largely on traffic grounds.
In the mid-1990s, he scored an almost unqualified success in shepherding the Masonite timber processing plant near Drumsna, Co Leitrim, through the planning process, despite objections to its scale - the factory covers 14 acres - and its prominent location on the banks of the River Shannon. Other clients included Noel O'Callaghan, the Dublin hotelier and property developer, with such controversial projects as a hotel on Harcourt Street incorporating the birthplace of Sir Edward Carson and an office development on the site of Archer's Garage in Fenian Street.
Frank Benson was also very active in the Dublin Chamber of Commerce, serving as chairman of its transport committee in the early 1990s. An enthusiast for the Eastern Bypass motorway, long one of the chamber's high priorities, he spoke regularly at conferences on the urgent need to invest in Dublin.
A long-time resident of Howth, in Co Dublin, Frank Benson is survived by his wife Pearl (nee McIntyre), daughter Orla and mother Eileen.
Frank Lawrence Benson: born 1938; died, January 2001