The company behind saunas operator ‘The Hot Box Sauna’ has lodged plans to retain its sauna facility at Killiney Beach in south Dublin.
The application before Dun LDún Laoghairedown Co Council is one of two retention applications Lidoc Experiences Ltd has lodged for saunas already in operation at different locations around Dublin.
The business also has submitted a planning retention application to Dublin City Council for its sauna at the Goldenbridge Industrial Estate at Inchicore in Dublin 8.
The planning retention application for the five saunas and three plunge pools in there has received a wave of local support with 45 submissions lodged with the council.
READ MORE
The sauna operators last year opened its flagship operation at the Google Ireland owned Hot Box Sauna Bolands Mills in Dublin’s Docklands as part of a €2 million investment.
The company operates from eight sites around the country, including Co Cork, Meath and Sligo. At Killiney, Lidoc Experiences is seeking planning retention for its Hot Box Sauna at the White Cottage, Killiney Beach adjacent to ‘Fred & Nancy’s Killiney’, a mobile coffee van.
The Killiney Beach Hot Box Sauna comprises two saunas, changing rooms for men and women, a reception desk on a wooden deck and outdoor showers.
A planning report from Kevin Hughes of Hughes Development and Planning Consultants (HDPC) planning report noted that while sauna facilities are not directly noted in the permissible land uses for the zoning for the site, they do fall within ‘community facility’ and ‘marine leisure facility’ uses.
The report states that the application directly responds to the council’s overall strategy to focus on healthy placemaking, by providing a recreational amenity that actively supports both physical and mental wellbeing for its immediate surrounding community, residents and local tourists.
The report states that a sauna premises “is a positive addition within the community, as it provides for a distinctive recreational facility, with many known health benefits, in ways similar to that of undertaking low to moderate levels of exercise”.
Kevin Hughes said sauna use provides health benefits under the headings of easing pain, mental health, improved cardiovascular health, respiratory benefits, alleviation of skin problems and also points to some researchers linking the benefits of regular sauna use with a lower risk of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.
Hughes added that the provision of a sauna and plunge pool facility directly responds to the need for recreational and sport-based infrastructure that serves people of various age groups within Dún Laoghaire Rathdown.
