DUNNES STORES HAVE been granted planning permission for a shopping centre on the outskirts of Waterford city – 18 years after it was first proposed.

The vast majority of the shopping centre has lain empty since the original planning was applied for during the boom.

Having first gotten on board with the project as an anchor tenant all the way back in 2007, the centre was completed in Ferrybank a year later at a reported cost of €100 million.

But it spent subsequent years in a protracted legal dispute between Dunnes Stores and the developer, Deerland Construction. Loans for the property were transferred from the developer to Nama when the financial crash hit.

Dunnes concluded legal talks with Nama in the past three years, allowing it to proceed with plans on the site.

In the meantime, the only tenants in the building have been Kilkenny County Council local offices and a library, while the large sections earmarked for the Dunnes outlet remained empty.

Now, Kilkenny County Council has granted planning, subject to conditions requiring that the mix of retail units don’t deviate from the planning application.

Dunnes Stores, trading as Better Value Unlimited Company, submitted the planning application last month seeking to change the use of sections of the ground floor – including an unoccupied car showroom – to amalgamate them with the the main retail centre.

This would form a new single level anchor unit with 3,000 sqm net of floorspace, according to the planning submission.

However, the development saw alarm expressed by neighbouring Waterford City and County Council which said it was “deeply concerned” over the potential impact of the proposed retail offering at the shopping centre.

The neighbourhood of Ferrybank sits on the county boundary of Kilkenny and Waterford, across from the latter’s city centre. Part of Ferrybank sits within the Waterford boundary and the area is considered a part of the city.

It argued that the current space for retail was “more than sufficient” to meet the retail needs of the Ferrybank area, as it outlined a fear that the shopping centre may harm business across the River Suir.

Mayor of Waterford Seamus Ryan told The Journal that there were was a “legitimate concern” in how the shopping centre would affect the city centre trading.

“When these developments come along, you can’t just look at them in isolation. You have to look at how it would affect the city centre there too,” he said.

While it is white smoke, the Labour councillor said that there had been such a “prolonged wait” to get to this stage that people weren’t willing to get their hopes up too high yet.

“It’s been going on for so long now that I think until people actually see something happening on the ground, it’s going to be very hard for people to get in behind it,” Ryan said.

But he added: “People do want to see something happen and particularly the people in the Ferrybank area – that is a growing area, with over 300 apartments to be added on the North Quay nearby, so it does need this kind of development.”

Planning conditions

The first floor of the retail anchor unit – which had been previously approved for the sale of higher-value goods – will now be repurposed into a separate leisure unit. This is understood to be a gym.

Kilkenny County Council granted conditional planning permission, setting out that Dunnes must “strictly” follow the permission to “ensure that effective control is maintained” over the mix of shops and goods.

These conditions include requiring that the unit identified as a ‘leisure’ outlet be used for that purpose and can only be changed with a separate planning permission. The council also wants the occupant of the leisure unit to be agreed in writing with the planning authority before it opens the outlet.

Another condition relates to an area identified as “back of house and storage” which is only to be be used for that purpose and “shall not be used as floor area for the sale of goods or services”.