A £40 million development plan is currently being proposed for 290 acres at the Roganstown estate, near Swords, Co Dublin. The owners of the estate, the McLoughlin family, already operate the Swords Open Golf Centre there.

In a planning application lodged recently with Fingal County Council, the family and its main development partner, McInerney Construction, propose an extensive upgrade of existing facilities, including improvements to the existing golf course and the creation of a new 18-hole championship course, development of a new hotel, conference and leisure centre based on Roganstown House, a new bowling green, 40 large detached homes and 10 luxury courtyard townhouses.

The hotel and leisure centre is to be developed around Roganstown House, which will become the main entrance. It has been carefully designed to retain the existing character of the period house within a sheltered woodland setting. It will be a two-storey structure with a central rectangular courtyard. The hotel will have 48 bedrooms, including two suites on the first floor of the existing house. Other hotel facilities will include a diningroom with seating capacity for 80 people, and a bar and function room to accommodate 140 people. There will be three corporate meeting rooms catering for a total of 110 delegates.

Like the hotel, the leisure centre will be two-storey and the ground floor will accommodate the reception area, coffee dock, offices, changing rooms and sports facilities. First-floor accommodation will comprise a cardiovascular room and an aerobic room.

Access to the hotel and leisure centre complex will be from a new entrance on the Naul Road approximately 130 metres south of Roganstown Bridge. There will be 240 car-parking spaces - a small number in front of Roganstown House and the majority to the front and side of the leisure centre. There is also provision for an overflow carpark for up to 200 cars on the opposite side of Naul Road, and the gate lodge is to be refurbished.

It is also proposed, as an integral part of the overall development, to build 50 luxury homes in four discreet clusters on the 290-acre site. Of these, 40 will be large detached dwellings and the remainder will be courtyard-style townhouses.

These clusters have been designed with a maximum density of three homes per acre. There will be two styles of detached home, each on plots of between one-third and half an acre. Twenty-eight of these homes will have more than 3,300 sq ft of floor space. The other 12 detached homes will be somewhat smaller, with 2,700 sq ft.

The proposed courtyard-style townhouses will be arranged in a horseshoe shape, facing Roganstown House. Access will be through an archway.

The design team says it has paid special attention to detail. The use of high-quality materials, with extensive use of timber, including replacement of existing PVC windows in Roganstown House itself, is proposed. It has also paid particular attention to ensuring the designs and densities envisaged do not detract from the existing countryside. Extensive landscaping, sensitivity to existing views and retention of existing hedging, wherever possible, is proposed.

The golf course plans involve reconfiguration of the existing course, using some existing holes and some new ones, and the development of a new course using a similar combination of new and existing holes.

THE intention is to significantly enhance existing pay-as-you-play facilities on what will be known as the Old Course, while the New Course will be a private golf club with a membership of approximately 500. The team that has been assembled for the project includes leading designers and architects and a developer with considerable experience in this type of high quality demesne development.

McInerney Construction has been involved in a number of high profile golf/hotel/leisure and residential developments recently - for example, at Mount Juliet in Co Kilkenny, Faithlegg in Co Waterford and Tulfarris in Co Wicklow, while Kieran O'Malley was involved in the development of the Links Golf Course at Portmarnock.

According to Mr Joe McLoughlin, a variety of alternative proposals have been considered over the past two years. "Our central aim has been to ensure a viable and sustainable use which respects the existing period house, in which our family has lived for three generations, and which is also sensitive to the visual amenity.

"The number of businesses locating and people choosing to live in and around Swords continues to grow and additional facilities are required to meet these needs. We really have only one chance to get this right and we are satisfied that, after much hard work, including close consultation with everyone living locally, we have devised a plan which will work exceptionally well for the people of Fingal, today and in the future."

It is estimated that between 65 and 85 full-time jobs and 35 part-time jobs would be created during the four-year construction phase of the project.