Fingal County Council has raised “significant concerns” over plans to construct a new road to serve a proposed 142-bedroom ‘destination’ hotel for Howth in north Dublin.
In July, the owners of Citywest Hotel, Tetrarch Capital, lodged plans for the new hotel on the site of the former Deer Park hotel in Howth.
The hotel is part of Tetrarch’s wider plans for the Howth Estate and the hotel includes a rooftop restaurant, bar and terrace, a spa, fitness centre and swimming pool.
Under Tetrarch’s plan, the existing Deer Park building is to be demolished and replaced by the new four-storey hotel.
However a Fingal County Council planner’s report has said the scale and need of the new access road for the hotel “appears excessive”.
[ Church of Ireland in Howth objects to planned ‘destination’ hotelOpens in new window ]
The proposed road is also the focus of objections from the local Church of Ireland, residents and the Social Democrat TD Cian O’Callaghan.
The council has told the Tetrarch firm that it has “significant concerns regarding the nature, route and scale of the proposed access road and the consequential impacts to the established sensitive setting”.
The council has asked the applicant to show how the road complies with various objectives of the county development plan and provide further information detailing the rationale and requirement for the road.
The planning authority has also asked the applicant to demonstrate clearly why the existing access road is not sufficient.
The council planner’s report said that the proposed access road presents as being ‘superfluous’ in the absence of sufficient rationale.
The report also said “the insertion of this significant piece of infrastructure would radically alter this part of the demesne lands that has been historically parkland and a golf course from the late 20th century”.
Tetrarch anticipates that 300 jobs will be created during construction of the new hotel and a further 280 jobs once it is fully operational.
Tom Phillips and Associates’ Aoife McCarthy has told Fingal County Council on behalf of Tetrarch that the proposal would “provide for a destination hotel for Howth that has been lacking over the last number of years”.
