Lagore House to be redeveloped into high-end 'health estate"

The Dunshaughlin area is to be the location of a new 'health and recreation estate" following the decision by Meath County Council to grant planning for the redevelopment of Lagore House and estate on the Dunshaughlin-Ratoath road. Plans for Lagore Health and Recreation Estate include the conversion and extension of the existing Lagore House and outbuildings into self-catering accommodation with restaurant, bar, conference and function room facilites, a bespoke health spa, stables and all associated facilities; incorporated amongst themed garden courtyards, restored walled garden, new detached mews housing in a walled garden setting and landscapes walks. A design team of Cooney Architects, DBFL Engineers, Moore Archaeology and Stephen Diamond Landscape Designers, Daughton & Associates and McGill Planning Consultants spent several months refining the now granted masterplan and design for the rejuvenation of Lagore, one of Ireland"s period estates of regional importance, owned by the O"Hare family. Intensive dialogue and consultations were held with Meath County Council"s planning, conservation and engineering departments before the decision to green-light the project was taken. Cooney Architects, which claims a proven track record of best practice architectural conservation work and modern design principles, applied their previous experience and a conscious design ethic over the proposals for the restoration of the existing buildings and the interweaving of sensitive but modern interventions and configurations of additional new buildings. The landscaping of the estate has been designed by Stephen Diamond Landscape Designers and Cooney Architects and includes for the use of native species and is intergral to the overall character of the demesne. Orientation, services and materials to best encorporate principles of sustainibility were proposed, in what is planned to be a very 'green" estate. The essential character of individual buildings and their relationship to each other has been maintained, while modern and stylish facilites that sit into the Meath countryside have been added. Local county councillor Nick Killian has welcomed the decision by Meath County Council to grant planning approval for the refurbisment and redevelopment of Lagore House and estate. 'This project, when complete, will bring tourism to the heart of the county and will create about 50 new jobs in the tourism area. I wish this very important project well and look forward to its opening in the near future,' he said. Fundamentally, Lagore will be leading the way in terms of appropriately designed rejuvenation of our local heritage, the Fianna Fail councillor said. 'Lagore is to be saved from a future of becoming, to quote Shaffrey"s 'Irish Countryside Buildings", 'just a ruin overgrown with weeds and inhabited only by memories and echoes of former days". With the granting of this planning permission, Meath County Council have afforded the bequeathing of this fine legacy of buildings to future generations,' he added. An estate which dates back to the early 1700s, Lagore has both architectural and cultural significance and its loss or disfiguration would have been a loss to both the local heritage and to the nation as a whole, added Cllr Killian.