Gorteen House Survives. Again.

Hide & Seek & Destroy

ith their first application to demolish Gorteen House refused in October, Napier Venture Ltd’s second shot at flattening a 100-year-old Delgany house has again been thwarted.

It was on GG’s daily walk down Bellevue Hill on March 16th that we spotted for the first time a yellow site notice letting the world know that Napier intended to apply for the same demolition permission once again.

By a strange coincidence, the deadline for objections to the demolition is Monday 20th, four days away. With Paddy’s Day and Mother’s Day in-between.

We also check the local planning applications daily on the eplanning.ie website, and this little beauty proved very hard to find.

Despite such short notice and the distinct smell of sly tactics, the second attempt to knock down Richview (later Gorteen) House has now been refused. Despite the fact that architectural heritage consultant Deirdre Conroy opened her application report by proclaiming in bold that it was ‘not a protected structure’, and it was ‘not located in the Delgany Architectural Conservation Area’.

Countering such claims, Colin Acton and Charlotte Byrne cited in their objection letter the October 2022 refusal notes by Wicklow Planning to the previous demolition application:

⦿ Richview House is rated as of Regional Importance by the NIAH

⦿ The present state of the structure is a result of neglect

⦿ The planning permission granted in 2015 proposed the house to be retained

⦿ No major damage or structural weakness is evident from the AHIA report.

In its prime…

The two local residents also pointed out that the Building Survey Report filed with the latest application is not a structural survey carried out by a chartered structural engineer but effectively ‘no more than a visual inspection‘.

We’re still not convinced this second attempt to replace the old Delgany residence was entirely overhand, given that, despite checking Wicklow Planning’s website daily, this second demolition application never appeared on their current list, and despite walking past this property daily, the site notice seemed to suddenly appear on the Friday of Paddy’s Day weekend, the deadline for submissions being a mere four days later, on the Bank Holiday Monday.

Gorteen Way MAR22

Fair fecks to Colin and Charlotte for making that deadline.

Getting in touch with Wicklow Planning at the time, they claimed that the sign had been erected and photographed regularly by the builders since February 10th, but never got back to us when we enquired about the application not appearing on their website’s list of active planning shenanigans.

So, until the next application, or a latenight visit by Maguire & Patterson, let’s keep holding on to what’s left, people.

In the meantime, you can take a stroll with Shay Clear through Gorteen House’s history here.