Planning for cinema at Rathmines turned down

Dublin Corporation has blocked a plan by British Land to provide a seven-screen multiplex cinema on top of The Swan Shopping Centre in Rathmines, Dublin 6. The plan would have involved the conversion of 14 retail units and the development of further space at first floor level to accommodate about 1,000 cinema patrons. The corporation ruled that because of the height, scale and massing, the development would be visually obtrusive and out of scale with the streetscape on Rathmines Road Lower. The Swan Centre has been on the market for some months.