THE UNIVERSITY of Limerick (UL) was successful in securing planning permission for its city campus in the controversial former Dunnes Stores building on Sarsfield Street.
UL was given permission by Limerick City and County Council to change the use of the former supermarket building to educational use last November, but two appeals to An Bord Pleanála saw the project delayed.
This past week, An Bord Pleanála (ABP) upheld the change of use permission, overruling its own inspector’s advice.
The appeals board said the proposed new city campus “would be in accordance with the ‘city centre’ zoning of the site, would be in accordance with the provisions of the Limerick Development Plan 2022-2028 and would, therefore, be in accordance with the proper planning and sustainable development of the area”.
ABP’s own inspector said that UL’s plans “strictly speaking” would not have been in accordance with the development plan, a statement that was overruled by the board.
The application for change of use was previously appealed by two individuals, one of whom claimed that by keeping the existing former supermarket building, UL would have fundamentally failed to deliver a world-class landmark building on the site.
In response, UL stated that the building would only be maintained “in the interim” while a masterplan is drawn up to further develop the building in line with the Council’s development plan.
A second objector argued that as UL is already using the site for educational purposes, so it should instead have applied for retention permission.
