Wetherspoon appeals refusal of permission for Camden Street sound barrier

Pub operator proposed barrier as solution to noise issue at beer garden attached to Keavan’s Port hotel

A computer-generated image of the sound barrier Wetherspoon has proposed for its Camden Street beer garden.
A computer-generated image of the sound barrier Wetherspoon has proposed for its Camden Street beer garden.

A planning battle over a 43-foot-high sound barrier for the beer garden at a JD Wetherspoon pub at Camden Street in Dublin is set to continue after the pub operator appealed Dublin City Council’s refusal of permission to An Bord Pleanála.

The barrier has been described by one local resident as being “taller than the Berlin Wall”.

JD Wetherspoon plc proposed the 26.5ft-wide sound barrier to allow it to reopen a 244-person capacity beer garden attached to its super-pub at the Keavan’s Port hotel. The pub company temporarily ceased trading at the beer garden in April last year after local residents complained about noise levels.

The planned sound barrier faced strong opposition from parents of children attending an adjacent Montessori School, the D2 Creche and Montessori and from local residents.

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In a comprehensive rejection of the scheme, Dublin City Council said that the sound barrier would create an unacceptably high, solid barrier in an inappropriate material and would seriously injure the architectural character, setting, special interest and amenity of protected structures within the area.

Gordon Deegan

Gordon Deegan

Gordon Deegan is a contributor to The Irish Times