Coughlan fails to keep jazzed-up property
JAZZ singer Mary Coughlan may be forced to demolish newly erected buildings on her land, after Wicklow County Council refused her permission to retain them.
Earlier this year, Ms Coughlan was reportedly issued with a warning letter by the council, after it received a complaint that she had built a series of unauthorised structures to the rear of her Kilmacanogue house.
She claimed at the time she had built a ‘granny flat’, stables and a tack shed for keeping horses, arguing that retrospective planning permission should be granted, as at only 66 sq m, it is just slightly bigger than the 45 sq m allowed.
The musician also argued that the stables and tack shed did not need planning permission as they were for ‘agricultural use’.
The Sunday Times reported yesterday that the council last week refused Coughlan permission to retain the structures, as the ‘granny flat’ was a ‘separate habitable unit’ that was ‘located at some distance from the main house’ with its own entrance.
Following an inspection of the structure, which is home to Ms Coughlan’s daughter, son-in-law and their child, found that three of the rooms were bedrooms.
The planner said: ‘It is considered that the building does not qualify as an independent living unit, and is in fact a separate dwelling in its own right.’
Earlier this year, Coughlan, who didn’t comment when contacted by the Irish Daily Mail, threatened to stage a sit-in over plans to build a six-lane motorway near her home in the Wicklow mountains.
She said the Transport Infrastructure Ireland project, in conjunction with Wicklow County Council, to cut through nature idyll the Glen of the Downs, would go ahead ‘over [her] dead body’.
The blues and jazz singer was among 2,400 residents who signed an official objection to the proposals to expand the N11, which they said would devastate Delgany, Kilpedder and the hinterlands.
The six-lane highway – proposed under the N11/M11 Junction 4 to Junction 14 Improvement Scheme – would cut across the upper slopes of the Little Sugarloaf mountain, and its aim would be relieve traffic. Ms Coughlan told the Mail at the time: ‘This is a protected area, it is impossible to get planning permission for even a shed up here.
‘It’s a beautiful, beautiful place to live with lots of wildlife like badgers and hedgehogs running around. These plans will totally desecrate the area.’