Planners give green light for work at CTG facility

Nua Healthcare has been granted permission by An Bord Pleanála for the conversion and extension of a garage to two one-bed community dwellings and a boilerhouse, at an address at Bethany House, Castletown Geoghegan.

The case was before the planning board on foot of a third party appeal brought by Stephen Lynam of Adamstown, Castletown Geoghegan, after Westmeath County Council granted permission to Nua Healthcare, care of Darragh Lynch Architects of Estuary House, New Street, Malahide, for the development in June of last year. A year previously, an initial application for similar works had been turned down.

The submissions made by Mr Lynam were that the permission was counter to the council’s own policy that non-essential dispersed residential development in rural areas should be controlled, and directed to existing settlements, and that in the absence of a physical connection to the main house, the development would constitute a haphazard, disorderly form of development on a restricted site area.

The inspector’s report found that the appeal site is located within the open countryside, in a rural area. On site, there is an existing dwelling, which is currently in use as a community dwelling, providing residential care for individuals with intellectual and physical disabilities.

“I note that the applicant has provided a need to locate in a rural environment because of the nature of the care required,” said the inspector, adding that on the question of scale, the appeal site is a large site of 0.31 ha, with the floor area of the existing dwelling stated at 306 square metres and the proposed works comprising some 400.3 square metres in floor area, in the form of the conversion and extension of an existing detached garage building on site.

“I am generally satisfied that the overall principle of the proposed development is acceptable, and having regard to the existing use on site, the justification for the proposed development, its layout and the remaining open space, that the development would not represent over-development of this site and is consistent with the existing use permitted on site,” wrote the inspector.