Lidi denied permission to extend car park of north Mayo store

Mayo County Council has refused planning permission for a discount foodstore supermarket to extend the capacity of its car park at its Ballina store.

German discount retail giant, Lidl had sought planning permission to demolish a vacant house adjacent to its Ballina supermarket at Bohernasup in order to extend the existing Lidl site and car parking area to facilitate an additional 38 car parking spaces.

The Lidl store at Bohernasup was opened in 2015 and the existing car park has a capacity for 75 car parking spaces but the applicants stated that this was insufficient space for the demand and was 'increasingly problematic from an operational capacity perspective'

In the application to Mayo County Council, Fintan Morrin of The Planning Partnership on behalf of Lidl Ireland stated that a three-day survey of parking at the store showed that 'operational performance of a car park starts to deteriorate when occupancy approaches its capacity, and typically starts to decline when occupancy exceeds 85- 90 percent'.

“The specific level at which the performance deteriorates is however noted to be influenced by a range of factors, including the car park’s layout and the extent to which demand is evenly distributed throughout its parking bays.

“The store car park is intended to accommodate Lidl customer and staff related parking requirements, the latter of which (from experience of other Lidl stores) typically account for circa 6-8 percent of occupied car parking bays, depending on car parking capacity.

“Both Thursday 19 June and Saturday 21 June [2025] recorded peak occupancy levels which exceeded the car park’s operating capacity threshold, thereby negatively impacting on the availability of vacant car parking spaces by customers,” the application read.

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Lidl argued that the additional capacity proposed will enhance the operation of the store, and improve the customer experience.

A similar application to demolish the same dwelling house and extend the car park made in 2015 was refused by Mayo County Council on the grounds there was adequate car parking provision for the existing Lidl store and that the proposed development would impact negatively on this mature residential area. This decision was appealed to An Bord Pleanála but the appeal was rejected.

Referencing the previous refusal, Mr Morrin outlined that the store has traded with constrained car parking for a number of years with the impacts of the same increasing over time.

“Whilst we note a similar proposal was refused a number of years ago, we submit that the passage of time and the increasingly successful trading of the store warrants reconsideration of this proposal,” he added.

In conclusion he stated that based on the foregoing, and considering the pattern of activity since the existing store was developed, 'we respectfully submit that the proposed development would not lead to material planning impacts, and as such we request that planning permission be granted accordingly'.

However, Mayo County Council planners disagreed and refused the application.