Some 100 jobs are to be created in Monasterevin after Kildare County Council approved plans for a 17-acre motorway services station, the first of its kind in Ireland.
At a meeting of the council on Monday, the local authority unanimously voted for a material contravention of its development plan to allow for the complex at Mayfield, just off the main M7 on the northern side of the town.
The plans include a 107-bedroom hotel, 16-pump petrol station, truck stop, shops, restaurants and 386-space car park. The plan was proposed by Fitzpatrick's Ltd, a supplier of agricultural machinery which operates a Texaco filling station on the Kildare Road, Monasterevin. It is thought the business has been adversely affected by the opening of a bypass of the town last year, and this is seen as an attempt to turn that round.
After a month's wait to allow for objections, it is thought the construction of the complex will be put out to tender with the view to work starting early in the new year.
If all goes according to plan, it is hoped the station will be open before the end of 2006.
"We expect this will create in the region of 100 jobs in the area," said Donal Fitzpatrick. "We have received tremendous support from the local community, and it is our aim to provide an excellent service for road-users who currently have no rest stop available to them on the motorway."
Fitzpatrick's is in negotiations with several companies to see which will operate the hotel, restaurants and shops. It is also in talks about which oil company will service the filling station.
The station has been designed on a British/European model by Milligan Reside Larkin, architects in Newry, Co Down. Rory Milligan said this was the first services station of its kind in Ireland, North or South.
The announcement has been welcomed locally, with many seeing it as another positive development for Monasterevin.
It follows the opening of the bypass last November, the reopening of the town's railway station and several housing developments in the area in recent years.
Matt Lonergan, chairman of the Monasterevin Development Group, said: "It's often like we are the forgotten people down here in the butt of Co Kildare.
"Monasterevin is overdue industry and employment, and this will open up avenues for new things in the town."
Local TD Sean Ó Fearghaill said that, while the land around the proposed development was unzoned, there were plans that this would be a precursor for further work in the Mayfield area that could provide manufacturing or other types of employment.
"Monasterevin and Kildare town were identified in the strategic planning guidelines for the greater Dublin area as secondary growth centres, and it is important that that does not just mean more houses but also the provision of jobs and industry," said Mr Ó Fearghaill.
"This is an excellent step in the right direction."