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Mixed-use scheme for Old Mill pub site in Tallaght rejected:An Bord Pleanála has rejected a development by Louis Fitzgerald's Contorus Ltd at Old Bawn in Tallaght, Dublin 24. The proposed scheme is for the site of the Old Mill pub.

Contorus Ltd was looking to incorporate a public park, 40 residential units in five blocks, 62 car-parking spaces, two restaurants and office space.

The directors of Contorus Ltd are Louis Fitzgerald, Helen Fitzgerald of the Fitzgerald Pub Group, and Patrick Walsh. They were looking to build a new restaurant and office building at the western end of the existing Old Mill public house site and five blocks of apartments on the triangular area to the south-west of the public house site bounded by the Bohernabreena Road and the escarpment of the River Dodder Valley.

The dining areas would have opened out onto substantial terraces, which would have been cantilevered out over the escarpment of the River Dodder Valley.

However, the appeals board ruled that the site is zoned "Objective G" in order "to protect and improve high amenity areas" under the South Dublin County Development Plan, 2004-2010. This means that residential development is only open for consideration "under very limited circumstances".

Thumbs-up for redevelopment of Smyth's pub on Haddington Road

Publican Hugh Courtney has been granted permission by Dublin City Council to redevelop Smyth's pub on Haddington Road in Dublin 4. Courtney is planning to demolish existing extensions at ground and first floor level to the rear of the existing two-storey building fronting Haddington Road and build a four-storey over basement block with two apartments and a new pub entrance and shop front onto Percy Place.

The pub will also be extended to 105sq m (1,130sq ft).

Bord rejects plan to add 71 homes to Clonsilla scheme

Developer Kimpton Vale has been refused planning permission by An Bord Pleanála to increase the number of units in a previously permitted development at Porterstown in Clonsilla from 139 to 210 and extend the car-park.

The board ruled that the design, scale, layout, height, width, bulk and "monolithic design" of the proposed building would be "visually obtrusive" and out of character with the prevailing pattern of development in the area. The proposed development would also result in "an incongruous layout and negative relationship with adjacent open space both for this development and the development under construction to the north".

The directors of Kimpton Vale are Laurence Keegan and Maireád Keegan.