Go-ahead for Tullamore sterilisation facility

Offaly County Council has given the green light for plans for a 6,726 square-metre sterilisation technology facility on the Clara Road in Tullamore.

The council granted planning approval this month, subject to twelve conditions.

The project by Synergy Health Ireland Ltd., which is part of the Steris Group, is for the provision of a sterilisation process facility, with an office block attached to the front of the building, and ancillary technical external rooms on a 3.1 hectare site fronting the R420 Clara Road, just north of the Applegreen filling station. The project would have a maximum height of 19.65 metres and will be used to sterilise healthcare products.

The planning application lodged in March last also sought approval for the repositioning and upgrade of two existing entrances to the site from the Clara Road (R420) to provide a staff entrance and a dedicated truck entrance.

Internal roads, footpaths and a bicycle path are also proposed as were car, truck and bicycle parking spaces, and a segregated cycleway along the boundary of the site on the Clara Road.

Synergy Health Ireland Limited, already has another presence in Tullamore, based at the IDA Business and Technology Park, and the application for a the facility on the Clara Road had attracted a number of objections from residents living in the area.

Recently, Offaly County Council sought further information from the developers on a number of elements of the plan.

Among the points raised in some of the submissions was that the proposed development represented heavy industrial and warehousing use which would be contrary to the development plan zoning of the site.

This was rejected by the applicants who said the sterilisation technology facility was permitted in principle for the lands zoned Business and Technology Park