Two large apartment schemes, one on the site of the Lord Mayor’s Pub and the other at Fosterstown North, have been given planning permission by An Bord Pleanala.
The iconic pub, the Lord Mayors, will no give way to allow for the development of four apartment blocks with a retail element along the Dublin Road.
The appeals board granted planning permission to Jacko Investments Ltd for 144 apartments. The board have requested the omission of two units and an intermidiary floor in one of the blocks, compared with the original submission.
The other SHD to get approval is the Pinnock Hill SHD which will be opposite Airside and next to Boroimhe.
The board have given permission but with a significant reduction in height. The permission given to Castlestar (Swords) Ltd is only for a maximum height of 7 storeys and a reduction in units by 15. Their original submission was looking for a block of 9 storeys high.
Cllr Ian Carey said:
“I’m very sorry to see the Lord Mayors go. The building is so well known it is almost a symbol of Swords. What is replacing it is frankly a brutal geometric block – totally devoid of character.
“I was hoping the developers could work with the existing facade and still deliver the apartments but it is clear now that won’t happen.
“Overall however, I think it is positive that we will be seeing these developments come forward now at scale. I used to think we needed more homes and less apartments but after reading reports from the likes Threshold and looking at the housing list in Fingal it is really clear that we need many more one and two bed apartments. These developments will go a long way to meet that need.
“These two schemes are centrally located and in the case of the Pinnock Hill it will be adjacent to a Metrolink stop. We know from the experiences in other countries that schemes like this that are well located can work really well. We need to make sure now that these developments don’t negatively impact the areas surrounding them. That is about making sure we have the parks and amenities ready to go for the increased population.”
