The High Court has ruled that a proposed change of use at Abbey Manor Hotel in Dromahair can proceed to accommodate people seeking international protection or displaced persons. It dismissed Leitrim County Council’s proceedings insofar as they sought to restrain or otherwise affect that use, but adjourned claims about possible departures from the hotel’s planning permission and the question of costs.
In a judgment delivered on 29 April, Mr Justice Humphreys found that the hotel use had not been abandoned when the premises closed in 2009. The council had argued that the long period of non-use and disrepair showed abandonment. The judge said non-use and neglect alone did not establish a permanent decision to give up the use, and the council had not proved such an intention.
The court also rejected the council’s argument that the planning permission granted in January 2023 for commercial tourist accommodation had extinguished the earlier hotel use. The judge treated that permission as a particular form of hotel use, rather than a new and incompatible use. He concluded that exemptions under planning regulations for changes of use to protection accommodation were available, subject to the council’s arguments about planning conditions.
The council said the proposed use would conflict with conditions requiring the development to follow the approved plans and limiting the bedroom suites to short-term letting. The judge held that those conditions did not prevent the exemptions from applying where their requirements would inherently be contravened by the exempted change of use. He also found that a regulation concerning works to unauthorised structures did not remove an exemption for a change of use.
That ruling did not settle whether all the internal works carried out at the hotel complied with the permission. The judge said the council had produced a comparison showing apparent internal layout changes across all five floors, which might be more than trivial. He adjourned those issues to a proposed second stage, where questions of materiality, the court’s discretion and any possible remedial order remain to be considered. The court did not order the proposed accommodation use to stop, and the judgment records that the change of use had not yet begun and the premises were unoccupied at the time.
The council’s application had sought orders to prevent the change of use and require compliance with the permission, including remedial works. The court dismissed the case only insofar as it sought relief affecting the proposed use; the remaining proceedings and costs were adjourned.