Decision due on expansion plans at Clara nursing home

Offaly County Council is due to give its decision next week on whether or not to award planning permission for a development that would see 16 retirement homes added to the Esker Rí Nursing Home in Clara.

Kevin and Anna Marie Maher lodged a planning application for the expansion of the nursing home at Kilnabinnia, Clara, last November.

A report from the Tullamore-based Chancery Group planning consultancy, which was submitted as part of the application, outlined how the proposed retirement homes would be used "for short-medium term accommodation only, and will not be used as a place of normal residence."

"The 16 retirement homes will be ancillary to, and will be tied in with the use and operation of the existing nursing home on this site," it said.

"The retirement homes will not be used, leased, sold or otherwise disposed of, as independent permanent homes, living units, separate from the nursing home function."

The report stated that a development of 12 retirement homes had previously been granted permission at the site in 2005, but that these homes were never constructed.

The 16 retirement homes that are being proposed would be "single storey, set in a linear fashion and set back into the landscape".

Access to the retirement homes would be "via the existing main access to the Nursing Home, off the R420," and the plans include the provision of eighteen new car parking spaces, which would add to the "ample parking space" available in the nursing home's existing car park.

The planning report also mentions that Esker Rí "is a large complex and has recently won a Nursing Home of the year award".

Offaly County Council is due to give its decision on the planning application by Tuesday next, January 17.