New supermarket plan for Monksland

The prospect of a new Lidl store in Monksland has heightened after plans for a second supermarket in the area, which could create up to 40 jobs, have been revealed.

A company called MCS River Village Limited is seeking approval for a single-storey supermarket spanning over 2,200 square metres with an off-licence sales area on a green field site, close to Joe Duffy Motors and the Athlone Springs Hotel.

Several of the engineering drawings submitted with the new plans, lodged on September 27, but only appearing on the council's website in recent days, are headed "Lidl Store Athlone, Roscommon."

There have been longstanding calls for another supermarket on the Roscommon side of Athlone to cater for the rapidly growing population in the Monksland/Bealnamulla area, which MCS River Village Ltd stated has rose by 43% since 2006 to the current 8,625.

A previous proposal for a Lidl store in Baylough was turned down by An Bord Pleanála in 2021 due to its scale and location outside of the core retail area of the town.

This latest supermarket plan is earmarked for land zoned "District Centre" and would utilise a 0.91 hectare site currently "overgrown and vacant," as the planning documents lodged in support of the project have indicated. Surrounding the site are open fields to the south and east, and to the west, is bordered by ARM Academy and the Athlone Springs Hotel.

Access to the development would be via an entry road between the River Village Centre and Joe Duffy Motors, which would be revised as part of the project, and 127 parking spaces would be provided to serve the store.

A Planning Statement and Retail Impact Assessment lodged with the application argued that the proposal for the first large foodstore in the area for 15 years would "claw back" some of the trade, leaving the west side of Athlone to go to the east side for some of the bigger retailers like Dunnes Stores, Tesco Lidl and Aldi.

"The development will complement the existing convenience retail offer at River Village and due to its excellent links and proximate location it will add to the competition in the local area and one trip serving several purposes," it maintained, adding that it has "the potential to create 30-40 jobs” in addition to construction posts.

Laying down the case for approval, the applicant contended that the Retail Planning Guidelines 2012 emphasise placing large convenience stores in city, town or district centres. The proposal also complied with the "sequential approach" in the Athlone Retail Strategy and retail policies in the Local Area Plan.

Roscommon County Council is due to announce a decision on the new supermarket plan by October 31 next.