Ronan family to build an extension

SRY WE KPTKNG TH PSS OT OF YR MISSING VWLS

Johnny Ronan is in regular conflict with the planning authorities – from 40-plus storey towers in Dublin docklands to a 44-unit apartment scheme at the corner of Leeson Street in Ranelagh.

This week’s battle is over a planned 17-storey block that residents of Clarion Quay in Dublin 1 claim “will have a brutal and disproportionate impact” on their environment.

Maybe the developer would consider handing over responsibility for planning to Ronan Group Real Estate’s chief operating officer and senior asset manager. Also known as Jodie Ronan, his daughter, and her husband John Savage.

Because the couple has just been granted planning permission by Wicklow County Council, with eight conditions attached, to extend the Goulding Summer House, a protected structure near Enniskerry that you may have seen on the RTÉ crime drama series Kin.

Competed in 1973 for art collectors Sir Basil and Lady Valerie Goulding, it is cantilevered over the River Dargle, supported on a rocky outcrop.

The couple have been given permission to extend the ground and lower floors with a “minimalist glass link connection” in order to create five bedrooms, a home office, a TV room, and a storage and plant room.

It represents a rare planning victory for the Ronan family, who have struggled to get approval for work on their Enniskerry estate.

Seven years ago Johnny’s son James, the Ronan Group’s chief development officer, was refused permission by Wicklow County Council for a second mansion in the grounds. On appeal, An Bord Pleanála said it was not satisfied the building would not result in “a dominant and intrusive feature in this highly sensitive landscape”.

That was Ronan Jnr’s second attempt to build a house there. The first was made when he was aged 21.

His father also came a cropper in 2004 when he applied for planning permission to build a mansion, because it was deemed he did not meet the “essential housing

need” criteria. The property developer already had a home, Dargle Cottage, on the estate.