Quarryvale ruling could affect other development plans

Shopping centre developers will have to pay much closer attention to planning policies following An Bord Pleanala's decision to refuse permission for a scheme to double the size of the Liffey Valley centre at Quarry vale, in west Dublin.

The board's ruling is a serious setback for Barkhill Ltd, controlled by the Cork-based developer, Mr Owen O'Callaghan, and the Duke of Westminster, as it overturns a decision by South Dublin County Council to grant permission for their scheme.

Barkhill planned to add nearly 250,000 square feet of retail floorspace to the Liffey Valley centre, including a major Tesco supermarket to compensate for the deficiency of food outlets on the site, as well as a library and other community facilities.

A spokesman for the developers said yesterday that they would be looking carefully at the decision and reviewing options for further plans on the site, particularly in the light of the concerns expressed by the appeals board on traffic generation.

In its decision, An Bord Pleanala said it considered that the traffic generated by the proposed development "would tend to create serious traffic congestion" because of its nature and scale.

The board said it had reached this conclusion having regard to the recommendations of the Dublin Transportation Initiative final report in 1994 that speculative commercial, retail and leisure developments needed to be controlled along the M50 corridor for traffic reasons.

The decision referred to observations submitted by the Dublin Transportation Office, at the board's request, which noted that the N4/M50 interchange was already congested and said doubling the size of the Liffey Valley shopping centre would exacerbate this problem.

The second reason given by the appeals board for refusing permission was that the proposed development "does not take sufficient account" of the 1998 ministerial planning policy directive on shopping, as it would "attract a significant number of customers on a regional basis".

The board also said it believed that doubling the size of the Liffey Valley centre would "have an adverse impact on established retail outlets in Lucan/ Clondalkin," and therefore, the proposed extension would be "contrary to the proper planning and development in the area".

Mr Fergal MacCabe, planning consultant to RGDATA, the independent retailers' organisation, which had appealed against the county council's decision along with the Irish Hardware Association, said he was "absolutely delighted" by the board's ruling.

"This refusal simply reflects current thinking on planning, as expressed in the strategic planning guidelines for the Greater Dublin area and other planning policy documents. It means that developers will have to scan those policies more carefully from now on," he said.

Describing the board's decision as "one of the best outcomes of my career", Mr MacCabe said it showed that "plans matter". It would also change the way developers, and the public in general, viewed Dublin and "puts public transport in the driving seat".

In future, he said, shopping centre developers would have to take account of the availability of high-quality public transport to serve their sites, rather than providing acres of surface car-parking.

When the 180-acre Quarryvale site was rezoned as a "district centre" in 1993, it was subject to a cap of 250,000 sq ft on the amount of retail space to be provided there. However, this cap was lifted by South Dublin County Council in its 1998 development plan.

The Liffey Valley shopping centre grew out of a more ambitious plan by the Sligo-born, Luton-based property developer, Mr Tom Gilmartin. In the late 1980s, he assembled the site for a much larger motorway retail magnet with some 2 million sq ft of floorspace.

Mr Gilmartin is expected to take the stand next month at the Flood Tribunal, which is examining payments to politicians and others in relation to certain land transactions and planning permissions in Co Dublin. Quarry vale is known to be one of the cases being examined.