There have been mixed reactions to Waterford County Council’s approval of a €150m, five star resort which is set to transform the rural coastal area of Garrarus and revolutionise the face of Tramore tourism.
On Tuesday of last week, Waterford Co Council granted a 10-year permission for the demolition of existing farmyard buildings and a house located at Islandikane and construction of a ‘period’ style hotel complex, with 142 suites within a courtyard lodge which will act as the centerpiece of the development. The integrated complex will also include 51 associated detached golf lodges and 28 houses, a bar and a restaurant, a leisure centre, spa, function room, golf clubhouse and an 18-hole Jack Nicklaus Signature golf course.
The Council’s Planning Department attached 24 conditions to its approval of the plans, including the submission of an Ecological Management Plan prior to work commencing and the phased development of the golf course – a two-year waiting period must be implemented between the construction of the first and second 9 holes to lessen the impact on the Chouch bird, an endangered breed of bird nesting in the area.
Aimed very much at the family market, the resort is expected to take two years to construct, during which it will provide employment for about 350 people. An anticipated 150 full-time jobs will be created when the resort opens, with additional part-time positions likely during the summer months.
See The Munster Express newspaper for a more detailed report.
Dear Munster,
As a regular reader of the online Munster (I am Waterford born and bred, living in the UK) I was dismayed to read of the plans for development at Garrarus. I regularly return home to visit and in recent years have been appalled by the rapid pace of defacement of the Tramore coastal area, which is, to my mind, one of the gems of the Southeast. If we don’t get to grips with the over-development of our (still) beautiful coastline, we are in danger of killing the goose that laid the golden egg! The whole reason that top-end tourists will come is for the beautiful and relatievly unspoilt coastline. Surely the conflict of interest here is plain to see!! As always, the carrot is always the jobs which will supposedly be created. These low paid jobs have, in recent times at any rate, been taken by migrant workers, with little long term benefit to the local area. The only real benefit will go to the developers.
As I said earlier, I visit several times per year, so the gradual small changes that happen on a daily basis, which nobody really notices are more noticeable to me. Another ex-Waterfordian friend of mine, now living in the US, returned home last summer after several years absence and was reduced to tears by the devastation that he saw to the places that we knew and loved.
Wake up Waterford, don’t let our beautiful coastline be destroyed in the name of progress. Economic prosperity comes and goes (as we have been recently seeing, now that the ‘Celtic tiger’ has been shown for what it is, an illusion), but the things that really matter to the longer-term quality of life in the Southeast are disappearing fast.
Yours in hope,
Seamus Casey