Old Cork village pub to be transformed after development plans approved

A once busy village pub is set to be transformed after council planners granted permission for it to be converted.

Planning was approved on Thursday for the former ‘O’Sullivan’s Bar’ – later trading as ‘JohnJose’ – in Ballyhooly to change its use from a public house to apartments and commercial space.

Rather than ‘craic agus ceol’ advertised on its signage, the building will play host to four one-bedroom apartments and one two-bedroom apartment as well as a retail unit.

An application for the development of the building, located on Lower Main Street and the Fermoy Road, was submitted by Galway-based real estate management company Brennan & O’Connor Estates Limited in July last year.

Later that month, the proposed development was subject to an objection from the owner of a property adjacent to the former pub, who claimed there was too little parking in Ballyhooly for the village to safely accommodate it.

The objector also said that they would be delighted to see the building developed into a pub, restaurant or large single residence but the addition of five rental properties to the community would not make sense as a 39-house development was recently granted planning in the locality.

“The proposed development would continue to promote the unwanted social problem of people being forced into renting from commercial landlords in a areas where more houses for purchase for first-time buyers and young families are needed,” the objector also stated.

In August, Cork County Council requested some revisions be made to the development’s initial plans and the applicant submitted this information in December.

Under these plans, the ground floor of the former pub will consist of a one-bed apartment, a two-bed apartment, communal space and 30sqm of commercial space (located on the Fermoy Road end of the building).

Three one-bed apartments, the largest of which will be 68sqm, will be located on the first floor of the building.

Under the planning permission granted to the applicant last week, the development of the former pub is subject to 42 conditions which have yet to be published by the local authority.