Permission refused for holiday village in Ballintra

Planning permission has been refused for the development of a holiday village in Ballintra.

Donegal County Council has turned down C&C Property Investment Ltd for a proposed development at Lower Main Street, Ballintra.

The developer had planned to change 10 dwellings houses (eight existing and two proposed) to a commercial holiday village. The planning documents, submitted earlier this year, included provision for connection to existing services and all associated works.

Donegal County Council informed the company that it was refusing permission.

In its decision, the local authority outlined that it has a policy to ‘facilitate tourism developments which support the county’s core tourism product by providing visual and activity based visitor experiences/attractions which are consistent with the brand identity of the Wild Atlantic Way’.

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“Having regard to the location of the proposed development that is unrelated to any visitor experiences/attractions and that necessitates vehicular travel to avail of such attractions, it is considered that to permit the development would set an undesirable precedent for similar developments,” Donegal County Council said in refusing the application.

“Accordingly, to permit the proposed development would materially contravene the aforementioned policy provisions of the County Donegal Development Plan 2018-2024 and would thereby be contrary to the proper planning and suitable development of the area.”

The Council also noted that multiple and single holiday home units will be considered within a settlement framework provided that they not result in total number of homes exceeding by 20 per cent of the total existing and permitted housing stock.

The decision said: “It is considered that to permit the development would be detrimental to regeneration and potential use of existing residential stock in Ballintra and detract from established resource-related tourism accommodation elsewhere in the country.”