The High Court lifted part of a stay that had prevented work under planning permission for 698 student bedspaces at Our Lady’s Grove, Goatstown Road, Dublin 14. The stay was lifted only for the stages of the developer’s works programme before handover of the site to the main building contractor. It remains in place for work after that point, and any later stay application must be considered afresh.
Mr Justice David Holland delivered the ruling on 14 January 2022 in a judicial review brought by Wendy Jennings and Adrian O’Connor. They seek to quash An Bord Pleanála’s 3 June 2021 permission to Colbeam Ltd. The court did not decide the legality of the permission or the substantive grounds of the review.
The applicants argued that allowing early works, particularly tree removal, risked environmental harm and could make parts of their case moot. Colbeam said delay threatened its ability to open the student accommodation for the 2024/25 academic year, with substantial financial losses if it missed that letting period. The Board was neutral on the stay question.
The judge found the applicants had an arguable case and that damages would not adequately remedy the potential harm to either side. He accepted that Colbeam could face significant losses if it resolved outstanding planning-condition issues and the stay continued, though he did not accept its headline loss estimate as established. He also considered the evidence on environmental harm, including the proposed replacement planting and safeguards for bats. He was not persuaded that the likely harm, viewed with mitigation, was likely to be both serious and irreparable.
The judgment criticised Colbeam for failing to bring its position on pre-commencement planning conditions to the court’s attention in a timely way. The judge made no finding on the legality of proposed arrangements to begin enabling works before all such conditions were agreed. He stressed that lifting the stay did not make otherwise unlawful work lawful.
Balancing those matters against the public interest the judge identified in timely delivery of strategic housing, he lifted the stay only for the programme stages before contractor handover. He said the balance could be different when the issue returned. Costs and the terms of the resulting orders were left for later consideration.