Drogheda, Co Louth, could end up with two retail warehouse parks if plans by rival developers are both implemented - one for a site adjoining the Slane Road interchange on the M1 motorway and the other beside the Donore Road interchange, writes Frank McDonald, Environment Editor.
DDF Developments Ltd, the company which gave the 12 members of Drogheda Borough Council donations of €500 each, has already got planning permission from Meath County Council for a 9,500 sq metre facility on its Donore Road site.
DDF is controlled by three local businessmen, Mr Séamus Domegan, who owns a pub called The Thatch on Donore Road; Mr Phil Dillon; and Mr Pat Fallon, a civil engineering contractor who has done work for Meath County Council.
The second site, on Slane Road, is the subject of a planning application by Mellview Developments Ltd, which is controlled by a Dublin-based property developer, Mr Paddy Doyle; he recently completed a similar retail warehouse park in Athlone.
This site, which is zoned for retail warehousing in Drogheda Borough Council's draft development plan published on May 10th, had been identified by the council's planners as the most suitable location for a retail warehouse park.
A decision on Mellview's plan, which is for 12,000 sq metres of space, is due to be made by June 7th. Unlike DDF's application, an environmental impact statement (EIS) was submitted as the scheme was above the 10,000 sq metre threshold.
Louth County Council's retail strategy identified Drogheda as suffering from "retail leakage" to Dundalk, Navan and Swords, and proposed consolidating the town centre. Mellview's plan includes a bus service between the town and its site.
DDF was among those who objected to Mellview's application. Its own scheme for the Donore Road site had been appealed to An Bord Pleanála by Mr Dominic Hannigan, a planning consultant, who says he was acting for a Drogheda trader.
Mr Hannigan, who is a transport specialist, based his appeal on traffic grounds, arguing that Donore Road was already congested and would become even more so if DDF's retail warehousing scheme was allowed to go ahead.
Subsequently, he said, DDF had pressed him to reveal the identity of his client and, when he refused to do so, threatened to sue him for a six-figure sum. Later, another representative of DDF offered him a similar sum to withdraw the appeal, he said.
"The question I would ask is whether members of Meath County Council also received cheques", Mr Hannigan said. "One of the reasons I decided to stand in the elections is that I'm fed up with developers riding roughshod over the planning laws".
Now standing as an Independent candidate for Meath County Council, he claims that DDF brought pressure to bear on him to withdraw the appeal; ultimately, his client agreed to do so after DDF discharged the costs associated with it, he said.
Contacted yesterday, Mr Fallon said it was "not true" that pressure was brought to bear on Mr Hannigan to withdraw the appeal.
"I spoke to him a number of times on the phone and that was the end of it as far as I'm concerned", he said.
The appeal was withdrawn on February 20th. Less than six weeks later, DDF sought planning permission from Meath County Council for a further 6,000 sq metres of retail warehousing on its Donore Road site, bringing it to 15,500 sq m.
An adjoining site controlled by DDF, just inside the borough boundary, has now been zoned commercial-industrial in the draft Drogheda development plan, which also zones an L-shaped site to the east for a district-scale shopping centre.
DDF also has an interest in this site. If the zonings are confirmed, it could end up in control of a swathe of lucrative development land straddling the southern boundary of Drogheda, where major residential development is envisaged.
A borough council spokesman said DDF had proposed the district centre zoning, and this had been taken on board by the planners. It was also in line with a 2001 report by Dr Peter Bacon urging Drogheda to capitalise on its M1 interchanges.