New pedestrian crossing needed to facilitate Bower Hall housing project

The developer of the planned Bower Hall development on the grounds of the former Bower convent and school will have to pay €50,000 towards the cost of a pedestrian crossing on Lower Road, it's emerged in the planning conditions attached to the scheme's approval which were published recently.

The pedestrian crossing is listed as “required to facilitate the development” which will see 99 residential units, mainly apartments, developed on the prominent hilltop site overlooking the town by Wincove Land Ltd, linked to the Hanly Group in Roscommon.

Members of Westmeath County Council voted recently to contravene their own Town Development Plan to pave the way for the project's approval.

Revised plans for the landmark development will see a change of use of the listed convent building, which dates back to the 1880s, and a later extension from the 1960s, to house development of over 99 units, a mix of apartments and three townhouses, a library and a creche at Aghecocora, Lower Road.

In a bid to address earlier concerns about the height of the apartment blocks and the overall design of the scheme, the applicant reduced the buildings to four storeys, and moved some of the apartments to the western side of the site. According to the planning conditions, another €67, 419 will be paid by the developer in Development Contributions to the local authority to cover open space and roads/public transport infrastructure. There is a 50% reduction to the rate of development contributions because the site involves worked to a protected structure. Prior to the start of the project, the council also requires a cash deposit of €594,000 or a bond of an insurance company to the same value, which is €6,000 per unit, to “secure the provision of on-site landscaping and agreed boundary treatments to the satisfaction of the planning authority,” it added.

Back in May the company behind the ambitious plans, said a section of a planned library in the development will include a museum “celebrating what the La Sainte Union Sisters did for Athlone, and their history” in terms of the school and the positive standing it earned nationally and internationally.