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A VETERINARY HOSPITAL has lodged an appeal against the building of a massive housing plan on Cork’s northside.
Before Christmas, Cork City Council granted permission to HRP Construction to demolish the former industrial buildings at the Sunbeam factory site in Blackpool and build 81 homes.
The decision follows years of speculation and plans for the site, which was gutted by fire in 2003.
Previous applications had planned retail units and a 183-room hotel. The current plan consists of 25 two-bedroom apartments, 25 three-bedroom duplex apartments, six one-bedroom apartments, six two-bed duplexes, five two bed townhouses and 13 three-bed townhouses.
The proposed development also includes the provision of a local community centre with a two-bed apartment overhead.
However, the new plan has drawn objections from some locals.
In a lengthy appeal filed on 5 January, the owners of the nearby Sunbeam Veterinary Hospital (SVH) outline their objections to the plan. The appeal was sent by An Bord Pleanala to Cork City Council last month.
The SVH appeal, compiled by a consulting engineer, says that the plan contradicts the Cork City Development Plan, the Blackpool Local Area Plan and the National Spatial Strategy.
It warns that the plan would represent “over intensification” of the site. It adds that the application doesn’t pay adequate consideration to the veterinary hospital, which has operated beside the site since 2004. It says that the hospital hasn’t been provided adequate parking in the plan and “did not ask for this development and should not have the imposition of inadequate access and parking”.
The appeal goes on outline concerns about traffic, a lack of footpaths and sustainability.
“I would ask the Board to consider the foregoing and to either refuse to grant permission or condition alterations to plan to provide a sustainable and integrated development incorporating safety and adequate parking for such a mixed-use development.”
Fianna Fáil councillor John Sheehan, who lives near the site, says that he is in favour of the plan, if it is done correctly.
“We need more housing and the plan has a lot of what is needed. It’s a huge site and there’s a lot of developments going to happen. There is due to be 1,600 houses built in the area in the next few years. If it’s done sensibly, it would be good. But if they all came on stream at once, you’d be worried.
“It would be huge for the area, which has suffered from deprivation in recent years.”
The site was home to the Sunbeam Wolsey factory from the 1920s. The factory would be one of Cork’s largest employers for decades before the site was gutted by fire in 2003.
No sign of Shane Ross
@Roy O’Rourke: headline needs fixing.
@Roy O’Rourke: smell of him though
“almost definitely could be potentially the whale that might have been in either Dublin or Liverpool port, while also feeding potentially most definitely feeding on fish, just before it was more than likely certainly murdered by climate change or potentially other causes, that maybe but definitely one of a long list of ways it could have died” classic garbish titles…
@Cryptoalcho: Definately, maybe…
@GerryCummins: .
@GerryCummins: Perhaps
RIP whale
This the same wale who swam down the liffey to meet his mates in dolphins barn
@John O’Neill: Ah here
@Donal Connell: leave it out
More often than not when you find a mammal out of its comfort zone the mammal is in trouble.
Anybody find my bicycle whale on Dollyier?
He must have been sick. Poor thing.
More often than not when you find a mammal out of its comfort zone the mammal is in trouble.
In terms of whales.
A solo whale found out of its normal surroundings usually means that it is in trouble.
Either lost from its pod or lost on its own.
The next time you see any mammal in a position that you don’t expect it to be in presume it is in trouble big trouble.
@Linus Robin: Eamonn Ryan in Dáil Éireann, for example.
@Linus Robin: you ok?
@SFNutters: I’m fine thank you.
I realize that some of my post makes little or no sense.
I will blame that on 3 people calling to my house mid post and not proof reading.
Soz.
Almost definitely?
if not attended to quickly dead beached whales have been known to explode due to the build up of gasses if the whale is not gutted quickly .If your worrying about the smell now better cover your noses.
I’d say it died because of the big gapping hole in the end of it.
@Mumpsimus: that never killed your mother?
Liffey river just doesn’t sound right
I’d say that the untreated stuff coming out of ringsend nonwater treatment plant go him A national protest in needed save the whale campaign we can water we want save whales when do we want it Now.
Towed out to sea and told to stay there but not where it could be a hazard to marine navigation. What kind of morons do this?
have your say