GAA club move hits planning hitch

HERITAGE watchdog An Taisce has scuppered plans by Ballygar GAA Club to secure planning permission for a housing estate on a section of its lands.[private] The club intends to relocate to state-of-the-art facilities at Killeronan, on the other side of Ballygar. It had hoped to sell the old site, complete with planning permission, in order to part-fund the move. While the club secured outline permission from Galway County Council for nine houses at lands in Aghrane, this has been shot down following a challenge by An Taisce. Permission to build new playing facilities is a separate issue, and still stands, but refusal of permission to develop the old site is a setback. According to the club officials, there is massive community support for the relocation of the facilities and major fundraising underway. In his appeal against the housing estate, Ian Lumley, Heritage Officer with An Taisce argued that the project represented 'inappropriate, piecemeal, peripheral development' and should be rejected. The site, at Aghrane, which is surrounded by boglands and woodlands, was described in the appeal as 'entirely unsuitable for development'. In response to An Taisce's concerns, representatives of Ballygar GAA Club argued strongly that the proposed estate would be low density and unlikely to damage the nearby protected sites such as Ballygar Bog and the River Suck Callows. Club officials also contended that there was an urgent need to relocate the local sports grounds, and that revenue from the sale of the site at Aghrane would facilitate this. Assessing the appeal, planning inspector Louise Kiernan found that the estate would go against guidelines on the sustainable development of urban areas. 'The proposed development would represent piecemeal, isolated and disjointed development which would set an undesirable precedent for similar developments of this type in the future,' her report states. The inspector also found that without a public wastewater treatment system, the development would be 'prejudicial to public health'.[/private]