Offaly Hospice “cannot support” Arden Lane site
Offaly Hospice Foundation has said it “cannot support” the building of a Specialist Palliative Care Unit for the midlands region on a site in Tullamore's Arden Lane and has urged Offaly County Council to refuse planning permission for the facility at the proposed location.
A detailed submission which was lodged with the local planning authority by O'Neill Town Planning, on behalf of Offaly Hospice, states that, while the charity welcomes the commitment by the HSE to finally commission a hospice for the region, it cannot support the location of the facility on “unzoned and remote lands, distant from medical and community facilities.”
The submission argues that another site “within the curtilage of the Regional Hospital” has been identified for the hospice and adds that it is “one which has been thoroughly tested against all the parameters for same.”
Offaly County Council is due to make a decision by May 29 next on a planning application by the HSE for a new Midlands Hospice in Tullamore, to be located on a site in Arden Lane. The proposed facility, which will serve the counties of Offaly, Laois, Westmeath and Longford, will have 20 inpatient beds, complete with ancillary services, and a separate daycare and therapy wing to the south. Provision is also made for 80 car parking spaces including seven accessibility bays, and 15 bicycle Sheffield stands.
A set-down area for drop offs and pick ups and one mini-bus parking bay also form part of the plans, and the planning documents also state that road improvement works are to be carried out on Arden Lane. These will include footpath and pedestrian crossings, and redirected access onto R421 Arden Road roundabout via a new connection to the access road. This new connection is to be provided by the Riverpoint Construction Limited development.
Planning documents indicate that the development would be accessed via a new priority-controlled T-junction on Arden Lane.
The submission made on behalf of Offaly Hospice states that “the only agenda” they have in relation to the location of a hospice for the midlands region is “to improve the welfare and quality of life of patients and families enduring the trauma and upset of incurable life-limiting illness” and they add that they will “continue their efforts” to see the facility built and commissioned “without delay or waste of public money.”
O'Neill's state that while their clients (Offaly Hospice Foundation Ltd.) “fully appreciate the necessity and urgency” for the proposed Specialist Palliative Care Unit, they argue that this “cannot be countenanced without a rigorous assessment of its location” which can only be considered when the site is “fully tested against a number of variables necessary to maximise its medical as well as its community benefits.”
The submission states that the documentation on file includes a letter from Tullamore Lions Club “purporting to be the owners of the land” on which the proposed development is to place. “We are reliably informed that the Lions Club were not, at the time the application was submitted, the legal owners of the land in question. This needs to be clarified before any further action on the planning application takes place, and if they are not the legal owners of the land the planning application should be invalidated,” they argue.
In pointing out that the Arden Lane site is only accessible “by a narrow lane” which can only be upgraded by obtaining consent from local landowners, the submission says that no consent letter has been given by the pitch and putt club whose land, the submission says, is required for road widening. Neither is there a letter on file from the local authority giving permission for land required for road widening, the submission contends.
Describing the proposed location for the midland hospice as being “illogical and contrary to best medical practice” the submission on behalf of Offaly Hospice also expresses concerns about the “appropriateness of the land use issues surrounding the current proposal” in the context of previous decisions of An Bord Pleanála for similar facilities on recreationally zoned lands.
“This is particularly relevant when a land use proposal is being put forward on inappropriately zoned and remote sites with totally inadequate services and infrastructure, along with inadequate community connections to ancillary medical services, public transport and town centre facilities,” they state.
Included as part of the submission on behalf of Offaly Hospice - which runs to some 26 pages - is a copy of a planning report which was prepared by a Scottish-based agency, Scott Hobbs Planning (SHP) appraising the potential of the three potential sites for the hospice in Tullamore, namely a site on the grounds of Tullamore Hospital; a greenfield site on Arden Lane which is the subject of the current planning application by the HSE, and a third site on the Wellwood Campus, adjacent to Tullamore Hospital. The latter site was put forward by the Offaly Hospice Foundation for consideration and is their preferred location for the new regional hospice.
“SHP's professional opinion (was) that the preferred site for the hospice must be the readily available site within the Wellwood complex”, states the submission, adding that “it is difficult to understand how an exceptional case can be made” in favour of Alternative Site 2 (the Arden Lane site) “which by virtue of its characteristics will be subject to a more difficult and longer planning process.”