Planning refused for residential and commercial building at site of former Cork city pub

Planning has been refused for a residential and commercial building at the site of the former Distillery Bar on Watercourse Rd, Blackpool.

In March, Unique Fitout Unlimited Company lodged an application with Cork City Council seeking permission for the demolition of the former pub, which has been vacant for a number of years.

The applicants proposed to construct a new building at the site ranging in height from three to seven storeys, containing 22 apartments and a commercial unit at ground-floor level.

A planning statement submitted with the application contended that the proposal would make “optimum use of a brownfield site”.

“The site remains underutilised and the proposed development is designed to offer a sensitively designed solution on this brownfield site, which offers an appropriate densification of the site in housing terms and also offers a ground floor commercial opportunity,” it said.

It argued the proposed scheme represents an “iconic design proposal for an important site”.

The statement said the applicant’s intention, should permission be granted, is to maintain the apartments for private occupancy, “there-by balancing the level of social, sheltered, and AHB housing which already exist or are being developed in the wider Blackpool area”.

Cork City Council has decided not to sanction the development. 

In its reasoning, the council said that, having regard to the pattern and character of development in the area and the “restricted nature of the site”, it considered that the proposed development, by reason of its height, design, materiality, location, and contextual relationship to adjoining properties on Watercourse Rd, would result in the overdevelopment of the site and would “seriously injure” the visual amenities of the area.

Also among its reasons, the council said it considered that the scale, height, design, and external treatments of the proposed new building would not be appropriate for the site’s location within the within the Blackpool Architectural Conservation Area (ACA) and would result in “high negative visual impacts on the area”.

The council also stated that the applicant had not satisfactorily demonstrated that the proposed development accorded with the relevant standards for assessment of quality and layout of apartment developments.