Pat Kenny's fight to save family of badgers rekindled as plan to build nursing home by his house revived

Broadcaster Pat Kenny is set to do battle once more with builders, Bartra, concerning the developer’s plans to construct a 104 bedroom nursing home on lands in Dalkey that border the Kenny family home. This follows An Bord Pleanala re-activating the nursing home case and will issue a fresh adjudication on the plans in April of next year.

The case coming back before the appeals board follows local residents, including Mr Kenny, taking a successful High Court judicial review action against the appeals board grant of permission for the nursing home in July 2023.

As a result of the High Court action, that permission has been quashed and now Pat Kenny and his wife, Kathy can now make fresh submissions on the re-activated case where they can outline their reasons as to why the scheme should not proceed.

A spokesman for An Bord Pleanala said today: “Parties to the appeal will be given the opportunity to make submissions on the re-activated case.” He said: “A formal letter will be issued by An Bord Pleanála to the parties inviting submissions on the case in early course.”

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Mr Kenny along with Christopher Herbert, Tom Palmer and Peter Cullen brought the High Court judicial review action challenging An Bord Pleanála’s grant of permission. Among the grounds of their challenge was that the proposed nursing home will adversely affect badgers living on the lands.

Bartra first lodged plans for the nursing home in April 2021 and if the appeals board meets its target decision date of April 22nd 2025 it will mean that the planning application will have taken four years to get through the planning process.

The planning board green light for the scheme in July 2023 overturned a planning refusal issued in June 2021 by Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council to Bartra Property Ltd the scheme for Ulverton Rd, Dalkey.

At the time of the appeals board grant in July 2023, Mr Kenny said: “Kathy and I are flabbergasted by the decision which is bizarre on so many fronts." Mr Kenny said: "An Bord Pleanala's decision is wrong on so many levels and we can only conclude that the board is so-overworked that they can't look properly at plans and analyse them because this makes no sense whatsoever."

He said: "The board don’t appear to understand the observations made by local people.”

The Newstalk broadcaster described the appeals board ruling as "crazy, absolutely crazy - the board will be judged ultimately by what happens.” He said: "I don't believe that the board has a mandate to ride roughshod over local people."

He said: "All we wanted the board and the Council to do was to follow the rules and those rules involve protecting the badger."

Mr Kenny said that because of so much other construction work in the area “this is the badgers’ Alamo - they have nowhere else to go". He contended that "the board with this decision has effectively killed the badgers."

In their original objection, the Kennys expressed the belief that the badgers would not survive the development works for the nursing home.

The fears of the Kennys over the fate of the badgers were endorsed by Government heritage experts who told the Council that it seems unlikely that the various elements of the nursing home scheme can be constructed without encroachment on, and at least the partial destruction of the badger sett, probably including its main chambers.

In their objection, the Kennys stated that there has been an active badger sett within the grounds of their home for in excess of 20 years. As part of an objection against the scheme the Kennys had claimed that the excavation for the nursing home building at the southern end of the site would destroy the sett “and with it, the badger family”. The Kennys stated that any destruction of the badger sett would be "cruel and unconscionable.”

However, the appeals board granted planning permission after concluding that the proposed development would not endanger pedestrian or traffic safety, would not seriously injure the residential amenity of property in the area by overshadowing or overlooking or the visual amenity of the wider area.

The appeals board also concluded that the scheme would not give rise to unacceptable ecological impacts.

Bartra has been contacted for comment.

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