THE FUTURE of a €500 million development that would have seen a supermarket, hotel and new road built as part of a master plan to rejuvenate the town of Ardee, Co Louth, is in jeopardy after councillors in Louth voted against a material contravention to allow the retail element of it to proceed.
In doing so, the councillors rejected the opinion of the council’s senior planner, who said there is a need for an additional supermarket and recommended the Ardee local area plan be contravened to allow it go ahead, subject to conditions.
The planning application in question was from Eamon and Seamus Rogers for a two-storey retail unit, car parking facilities and an access roundabout to the new road on a 3-hectare site at Cappocksgreen, just 600m to the east of the town.
The supermarket proposed would have been 2,500sq m and councillors were told that permission was previously granted for another site close to it where it was proposed to build a new road to open up the lands.
Access to the supermarket would have been from the town.
Ardee-based councillor Finan McCoy (Fine Gael) said: “This is the first phase of a master plan for Ardee and it [planning] has been going on for four to five years. This is just one part of it; there would be a hotel with 65 jobs and another 90 jobs in retail.”
Cllr Pearse McGeough (Sinn Féin) disputed claims that 90 per cent of local traders supported the plan.
The county manager, Conn Murray, told councillors that in making their decision, they “must consider the planning reports put before you”.
The material contravention required 19 votes but got 18 and so was not passed.