An Bord Pleanála has given the thumbs up to a massive tourism, leisure and residential development and a technology park on a 400-acre portion of the grounds of Courtown Demesne in Kilcock, Co Kildare, despite local opposition.

However, in its conditions of planning permission the planning board reduced the life of the planning permission to five years and has ruled that the proposed logistics park and a nursing home be omitted from the development and the freed-up land be incorporated into the golf course. The development will include a 126-bed hotel with conference, spa and gym facilities, 72 tourist houses, 18 two-bedroom apartments, an 18-hole golf course, business and technology park and over 40 two-storey houses. There will also be a new distributor road from a new roundabout on the Clane Road.

The Board addressed some of An Taisce's concerns when it required that surveys to determine the presence of bats and badger sets be carried out.