WELL over a year after Clare County Council rejected Aldi’s plans for a Shannon store, An Bord Pleanála has yet to make a decision on an appeal.
A spokesperson for An Bord Pleanála this week said that its inspector has already completed work on the case, but it still has to go before the board of An Bord Pleanála. She was unable to say when this would happen, but that the agency is dealing with a significant backlog.
While the board usually goes along with the inspector’s recommendations, that is not always the case. Indeed, on a previous occasion an inspector had recommended allowing an Aldi store to go ahead in the town, only for the board to overrule them.
There has been much anger in recent years over how Shannon has developed, and the Council’s decision to block Aldi’s proposals led to more disquiet in the town.
When the most recent Aldi application came before the Council, it was rejected on a number of grounds. The Chief Executive’s order said, “The subject site is located on lands zoned as ‘Mixed Use’ in the Shannon Town and Environs Local Area Plan and on lands identified to provide a future town centre area.
“It is considered that the proposed development would not provide for an appropriate mix, range and type of uses consistent with the zoning objectives of the site.
“Furthermore, it is considered that the proposed development, by reasons of its layout, setback of building and extent of ground floor single use car parking area, would prejudice the future development of the wider site, as set out in Section 5.4 of the Local Area Plan and would materially contravene Objective 5.7 of the Local Area Plan, which seeks to provide a mix of uses within an expanded town centre.
“The proposed development would, therefore, seriously injure the amenities of the area and would be contrary to the proper planning and sustainable development of the area.”
It also stated that the proposed development would be “physically and functionally detached from the primary retail area of Shannon Town” while it pointed to poor pedestrian connectivity to the Town Centre and existing vacancy levels there.
Local councillor Gerry Flynn was critical of the Council’s approach.
“Clare County Council don’t want any development on that side of the road, that’s the mantra coming from Clare County Council and the planners. With the master plan for Shannon that was the attitude the whole time, they don’t want any development away from Sky Court.”
He said that it had put obstacles in the path of Aldi, while it has done all it can to facilitate the development of a data centre in Ennis.
“That came to us from officials. Why didn’t the officials give the same type of support to the likes of Aldi? Aldi would have brought thousands of people into Shannon and it was up to Sky Court to capture some of that, and bring them across the road.”
Councillor Flynn said the new master plan for Shannon was not addressing some local requirements.
“What are they putting into it? Crazy ideas, high rise apartments and residential, that’s not going to give people what they want from a shopping centre.
“People want choice. Aldi is a noted store, and we’d have been blessed in Shannon, Lidl on one side of the road and Aldi on the other side.”
Owen Ryan has been a journalist with the Clare Champion since 2007, having previously worked with a number of other publications in Limerick, Cork and Galway. His first book will be published in December 2024.