Planners give green light to new hotel and Lidl store

Planners give green light to new hotel and Lidl store

20 March 2019

PLANS for new multi-million pound developments in Downpatrick and Newcastle respectively have secured formal planning permission.

Last week, Newry, Mourne and Down Council’s Planning Committee approved plans for a new 51-bedroom hotel in Downpatrick and a new £3m Lidl supermarket in Newcastle.

Both developments will provide a number of new jobs, with the Lidl proposal for the former St Mary’s Girls’ Primary School site at Shanslieve Drive in the resort including plans for a new £500,000 base for the Mourne Mountain Rescue Team. 

The new three storey hotel being developed by Inch Abbey Holdings Ltd on the site of the former Abbey Lodge Hotel on the Belfast Road features a range of leisure facilities including a swimming pool and health spa.

In addition, the proposed hotel will include bar, restaurant and conference facilities, a function suite, changing rooms, treatment rooms, fitness suite and a gymnasium.

Nine years ago, a property developer came close to investing in a new 80-bedroom hotel at the Belfast Road site and while planning permission was secured, the proposal fell through due to the adverse economic circumstances at the town. 

Access to the proposed new hotel will be via Inch Abbey Road, with parking located to the side and rear of the new 6,400 square metre building. There will also be a dedicated parking area for coaches.

Original plans for the new hotel described finishing the exterior of the building in stone slate, with the accommodation centred around a landscaped courtyard. The proposed hotel development also includes plans to upgrade the Inch Abbey Road junction with the Belfast Road.

Lidl submitted plans to secure outline planning permission to redevelop the 3.5 acre Shanslieve Drive site in January last year. It plans to bulldoze the existing school to pave the way for the construction of a new 2,206 square metre supermarket food store and dedicated centre for the volunteers who run the mountain rescue team.

A new entrance via Bryansford Road is proposed, but there will be no access from Shanslieve Drive. The development proposal includes plans for almost 150 parking spaces, eight of which are reserved for mountain rescue team members. 

A new pedestrian crossing at the Bryansford Road junction with Shimna Road forms part of the proposal and while planners have received 15 objections, they have also received five letters in support of the proposal.

In papers submitted ahead of last week’s meeting, planners confirmed that none of the statutory consultees including the Department for Infrastructure, Rivers Agency, Environment Agency and the local environmental health department, had lodged any objections to the redevelopment of the former school site. 

They confirm that roads officials are content that the proposed development will not have any “adverse impact” on the existing road infrastructure and is acceptable in terms of road safety. 

Planners have insisted that the indicative designs of both the new store and mountain rescue centre would be inappropriate in this part of the resort. 

They say it is acknowledged that there are “obvious restrictions” for the redevelopment of the existing Lidl store in Railway Street and that there are no alternative vacant sites in the town centre which could accommodate the supermarket’s needs.

The supermarket giant says it has been looking for alternative premises in Newcastle town centre for over a decade without success and that while properties have become available, none were suitable because they were too small.