All clear for new Thurles community healthcare centre

An Bord Pleanála has upheld a Tipperary Co Council decision to give the green light for a major new medical facility in Thurles.

Action Enterprises Limited was granted planning permission , subject to 14 conditions, on October 8 last year for a community primary healthcare centre and pharmacy at the former Sweeney's bakery site in Mitchel Street, Thurles.

The development will consist of a change of use, (including part demolition to the rear) and extension of two attached and interlinked two -storey roadside buildings with retail on part of the ground floor and residential elsewhere to provide HSE medical, health and social services.

Also, the demolition of all former bakery buildings and associated structures to the rear of the roadside buildings and a derelict roadside storage building and barn to the east.

The development will include general practice, floor space for non-allocated private healthcare consultancy, meeting rooms, administrative offices, staff accommodation, receptions and ancillary uses; erection of an attached single storey pharmacy shop unit at the south-east corner of the community primary healthcare building; external works to the structure including roof plant and signage; new pedestrian and vehicular entrance off Mitchel Street, parking, circulation, external amenities (including landscaping), lighting, signage, substation/switch room, bin store and all associated services with connections to public services.

The project was appealed by Nora Maher and Mary Maher on November 1 , 2018.

Their grounds for appeal included concerns regarding the visual impact and “the considerable mass of the development when viewed from their rear garden.

“It is considered that the proposal is excessive in height and scale and will have a negative impact on the amenity of the appellants.”

Full story in this week's Tipperary Star, page 7