A Moore Street butcher has stalled the final phase of Hammerson’s €500 million transformation plan for Dublin city centre.
Stephen Troy of Troy Family Butchers on Moore Street has lodged an appeal with An Bord Pleanála against the Dublin City Council decision to give the scheme for Moore Street and Moore Lane the green light.
The latest phase involves the demolition of buildings and structures in the area to accommodate the construction of a new public plaza along with a mixed-use scheme in a six-storey building.
The permission follows two other approvals earlier this year by Dublin City Council relating to other parts of Dublin Central Project that involve 79 build-to-rent apartments and hotel, retail, restaurant, cafe and cultural uses.
Those phases have also been stalled after Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald and several other third parties lodged appeals against the granting of permission with the appeals board.
‘Catastrophic’ effect
Mr Troy is also an opponent of the other two phases and in his appeal against the latest phase to secure planning permission, he said that the “catastrophic” impact that independent businesses along Moore Street face as a result of losing footfall have not been taken into account.
“These [traders’] stalls won’t be trading throughout the construction phase and this project will likely be the end of the street trading on Moore Street forever.”
Mr Troy argues that the relationship that has been established for generations between market traders and independent store traders will be lost “and this will severely threaten the viability of our perishable goods business that has been trading on Moore Street for over 100 years”.
Mr Troy also said the impacts of such a large project were dramatically understated considering the loss of trade that would undoubtedly occur.
Concerning the latest phase, the Dublin City Council planning report which recommended planning permission said the proposal “would secure the regeneration of a brownfield site in a city centre location for office and cafe/restaurant space, providing frontage to a new public space”.
The council said the scheme “would ensure a more active frontage to O’Rahilly Parade in keeping with its historic significance”.
The local authority said the proposed development, together with the development proposed on the adjoining site, which is currently the subject of an appeal to An Bord Pleanála, “will complement the development of the adjacent national monument as a commemorative centre for the 1916 Rising”.
