Planning permission has been refused by Galway County Council to build 14 new houses onto an Athenry housing estate.
Bellville Building & Construction submitted plans to build an additional 14 houses at the southern end of the Cluain Lara housing estate on the outskirts of Athenry.
The works would have involved removing a decommissioned wastewater treatment plant and polishing filter on the site.
The new houses were to consist of three 4-bed, detached houses; eight 3-bed, semi-detached homes; and three 3-bed, terraced dwellings.
There were fifteen submission by local residents objecting to the project made to the county council, which raised concerns about the increased traffic, but mostly about the loss of green space within the estate, to make way for yet more houses.
The council inspector’s report noted that if this development was approved there would be “no usable open amenity space” for existing and new residents in much of the Cluain Lara estate.
The only amenity space left would be a strip of land by the northern edge of the public road, which the inspector added is “heavily planted and not of a layout amenable to play/sports”.
This lack of open space for residents was one of the reasons cited by the council in refusing planning permission, saying that the plans are a “substandard quality of residential design and layout
The county council also said that, based on the information submitted it was also not satisfied that there is enough capacity in the wastewater network for the new houses, or that the developer had the required consent to connect to the existing network.
