A new £15million retail park on the site of the former Unipork factory in Enniskillen is set to proceed after the Department for Infrastructure has withdrawn its "holding direction" on the project.
The Lakelands Retail and Leisure Park, which would include shops, a hotel, cinema and restaurants, had been held up after the Department said it would conduct a review into the planning application following a narrow vote to approve in the local authority’s planning committee.
In a letter due to be issued to a meeting of the Fermanagh and Omagh District Council committee on Monday night, DfI Chief Planner and Director of Regional Planning Angus Kerr says the holding direction ‘is no longer in place and the council can continue to process this application accordingly’.
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“I refer to the ‘Holding Direction’ issued by the Department on 24 June 2021, preventing the Council from granting permission on the above application until further advised,” the letter says.
“After careful consideration, the Department has decided that it is not necessary for application LA/10/2019/1392/F to be referred (‘called in’) to it for determination.”
“The Department is of the view that this application does not raise issues of such importance that their impact is considered to extend to a regional or sub-regional level and the circumstances of this case are not exceptional such as to render the use of my Department’s ‘call in’ power under section 29 of the Planning Act.
The park's developers, Elm Grange, have said it will bring hundreds of jobs into Co Fermanagh and generate millions for the local economy.
Tim Hortons and The Range are among the tenants which the developers say have already been secured at the retail park.
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