Lidl secures Knocknacarra planning after nine-year battle

From this week’s Galway City Tribune – German retail giant Lidl has finally been given the go ahead for a new supermarket in Knocknacarra – nine years after its first attempt to secure planning permission there.

The company has seen two previous planning appeals and a series of redesigns since October 2012 turned down in its attempts to open a new store in Knocknacarra – firstly off the Ballymoneen Road roundabout and subsequently at their site beside Aldi on the Western Distributor Road.

The company was told on Monday that An Bord Pleanála had upheld a Galway City Council decision from last year granting permission for a €5 million supermarket on the 1.5-acre site beside their German rival.

The one and two-storey building will have a total floor area of almost 2,700 square metres. Lidl will occupy the first floor, while there will be retail units on the ground floor, including a Costa Coffee, barber shop, nail bar and physiotherapy clinic.

The independent retailers’ group RGDATA had appealed against the Council grant of permission, telling An Bord Pleanála the fact that Galway City Council had approved 11 planning applications for discount foodstores in the past 10 years is “most concerning”.

It added that the city centre retail sector has been “catastrophically affected” by Covid-19.

The group – which represents independent, family-owned grocery outlets – said it is “particularly concerned with the proliferation of planned and permitted large convenience stores in suburban locations throughout Galway City in recent years”.
This is a shortened preview version of this article. To read the rest of the story, see this week’s Galway City Tribune. You can buy a digital edition HERE.