Objections to €30m Strandhill hotel plan

A DECISION by Sligo County Council to give the go ahead for a €30 million development in Strandhill, which will include a hotel, an aparthotel, retail units, houses and apartments, has now been appealed to An Bord Pleanala.

Casscon Building Company Ltd were given planning permission a month ago by to demolish the existing Ocean View Hotel and four houses at Carrowbunnaun on the top road in the village to make way for the new hotel and aparthotel and on an adjoining site to build houses and apartments.

Objectors to the development have claimed that it would obscure views of Knocknarea, was out of character for the village and according to one, would turn the resort into “a mini Torremolinos”.

The commercial development will involve a new hotel, including a leisure and fitness centre, bar and restaurant, conferencing facility and 13 bedrooms.


It will also include an aparthotel consisting of 61 units in four two-three storey blocks, 553 square metres of retail at the ground floor of two of the blocks and an underground car park providing 158 spaces.


One of 32 conditions attached to the permission is that the aparthotel units can only be used for short-term tourist and commercial visitor lettings and they cannot be places for permanent residence.



On the adjoining site, Casscon have been granted planning permission, subject to 31 conditions, for the construction of 34 residential units, comprising of 18 two-storey terrace houses in four blocks, two two-storey semi-detached houses and 14 apartments in two two-storey blocks.


At the time of the granting of planning permission it was stated that the project would employ up to 100 people during the construction phase and about as the same number when it was up and running.

Construction would take about two years.

Objections and submissions in relation to both developments were lodged with Sligo County Council by a number of people, including neighbouring residents.

Two of those, Sinead Lennon and Padraig Ryan of Carrowbunnaun, have now appealed the grant of planning permission to An Bord Pleanala.

In the course of their objection to the council they said that they had been living in Strandhill for 14 years and had seen it undergo dramatic changes.

They also claimed that “the travesty of inadequate planning has destroyed the flavour of the village rather than added to it.”

Friends of the Irish Environment