Anger over stalled Kildare service station development as 400 jobs hang in the balance

Applegreen, which owns multiple service stations around Ireland, should not be allowed to abandon a development site in Naas.

The hoped for July 2019 opening of a new service station and an estimated 400 jobs never materialised at the former Cemex plant.

The  Cemex plant, which once manufactured concrete pipes and which  itself closed in late 2007, was the location for the planned Applegreen project beside the “big ball” on the Dublin side of Naas.

Planning permission for the development was granted in 2014 by Kildare County Council.

When this happened the council said development levies would amount to €760,000.

The proposal was to build  a 400 square metre floor area development embracing a net retail sales area of 100 square metres and a restaurant seating area of 107 square metres.

Also approved were 41 car park spaces, 15 bicycle spaces and six fuel pump stands, including two stands to cater for trucks and heavy goods vehicles. 

However the planning application was subsequently withdrawn by the company.

“It looks like a bomb site. We’ve got so used to it we hardly see it,” Cllr Bill Clear said at a Naas Municipal District meeting.

He said Applegreen should not be allowed “to leave it.”

And he quoted from material which the company generated and uses to describe itself    which includes the words “sustainability is at the heart of what we do.”

He said Naas would not win the Tidy Towns competition so long as the site remains as it is.

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“We’re being held to ransom by Applegreen. It’s just plain wrong. There are homeless people living there.”

However, Applegreen was defended by some councillors.

Naas Mayor Seamie Moore pointed out that the site was in that condition when Applegreen bought it.

And Cllr Fintan Brett criticised Transport Infrastructure Ireland, which expressed reservations about the proposal. And he accused TII of stopping 400 jobs.

He said TII’s role was akin to a semi state body interfering in issues that it ought not to be interested in.

“I don’t blame Applegreen for being very sore about what happened.”

It is understood that the company was irked over how the project was received though it did not respond to a request for comment.

Meanwhile Kildare County Council has embarked on a traffic survey in the immediate area as  part of the preparation of  a masterplan, which recognises the location as a “key gateway site.”

A traffic modelling and access strategy for the site is to be developed within a year of the passing of the local area plan, which happened two months ago.