We make this submission to draft Cork City Development Plan 2022-2028 on behalf of our clients, Circle K Ireland Energy Group Limited, Circle K House, Beech Hill, Clonskeagh, Dublin 4, and in relation to their existing service station at Ballincollig, Co. Cork.

Our clients wish to contest the proposed rezoning of their service station at Ballincollig, with a land use zoning that, firstly, does not reflect or properly account for the established and permitted commercial use of the site and secondly, restricts not just its ongoing commercial use but its future development potential.

It is submitted that the proposed rezoning of the southern side of Main Street in Ballincollig, part of the existing Town Centre of the town with a Long-Term Strategic Regeneration objective is entirely inappropriate. There is no equivalent between Ballincollig Town Centre with zones such as the Cork Docklands, Tivoli, and others. The very way that the zoning objective is described and detailed in Chapter 12 of the Draft Plan reflects its inappropriateness to account properly for the whole range of permitted and established town centre uses in existence to the south of Main Street in Ballincollig, many of which are retail orientated.

On this basis, the submission strongly requests that the service station be zoned ‘Urban Town Centre’ in light of the strong and sustained planning merits pertaining to its existing and permitted use and its location within the existing Town Centre of Ballincollig.