Plan for 74 new homes in Laois town popular with Dublin commuters resubmitted after refusal
A planning application has been lodged to build 74 homes in Portarlington, for the second time after a refusal in 2024.
Site owner Limitlane Ltd is again asking Laois County Council planners for permission to build 74 homes, a mix of houses and apartments, on part of the former Avon factory site.
The site is at the corner of Canal Road and Bracklone Street, with proposed entrances to both roads.
It is close to the boys primary school, Portarlington GAA grounds, and the train station. The town is popular with Dublin commuters because of the short train journey to the city, and has more than doubled in population to almost 10,000 residents in the past 20 years.
The council refused the same planning application in 2024, saying that due to continued contamination of the site from the factory chemicals, the development would “pose a serious risk to the health of future residents”.
However the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has since completed a clean up of the pollution.
That application had also met with 26 submissions from residents, most of whom are from the Arlington housing estate next door. They all asked for the same infrastructure, to upgrade a footpath to a cycle lane, and replace a boundary wall to the site, raising it to 1.8m.
Limitlane again seeks to build a dozen two storey semi-detached 4 bedroom houses,, 32 two storey terraced 3 bedroom houses, 2 two storey semi-detached 5 bedroom houses and 2 three storey Apartment blocks with 28 apartments in total, incorporating 1, 2 & 3 bedroom units.
They say there will be a variation in house design to give an interesting streetscape, with accessibility to all houses, and several open spaces for play and amenity. One fifth of the houses will be given to the council for social housing, as required under the Part V scheme.
Back in 2024, the council planners gave their reason for refusing the housing.
“The site of the proposed development forms part of a complex former industrial site with legacy soil and groundwater contamination issues, some of which are currently subject to an ongoing comprehensive remediation strategy. The on-going remediation works are focused solely on addressing potential groundwater environmental risks as opposed to potential human health risks associated with future site occupiers. This groundwater remediation project is on-going since 2020 and has not yet been signed off by the EPA.
“Having regard to the failure to demonstrate that vapour risks from subsurface contamination will not endanger the health of future residents of the proposed development and having regard to the location of the development in an area where it is necessary to limit the risk of there being any serious danger to human health, the proposal, if granted, would pose a serious risk to the health of future residents and would therefore be contrary to the proper planning and sustainable development of the area”.
Laois Live / The Leinster Express has received confirmation from the EPA that remediation of the site is complete.
“Remedial works at the former Avon factory (Mr. Patrick McCormack, Reg no. P0274-01) site have been carried out in accordance with an agreed remedial action plan and the remedial objectives have been achieved. The EPA’s formal assessment process is ongoing. Further documents relating to the enforcement of this licence are available on the EPA’s LEAP Online portal for public access to enforcement and compliance records. “
The Avon Arlington site has a dramatic history. The factory in Portarlington opened in the late 1970s and formally closed in April 2000. At the height of success, it employed up to 1,200 people. The arrival of the American soap and jewellery manufacturing company brought a new way of living and working for a generation of people, in a 30-mile radius of the town.
It was bought by Claybourne Properties Ltd in 2001, and later went into the state’s NAMA property portfolio.
In 2014 a serious fire damaged the huge red brick factory and it was later demolished. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) began soil remediation works in 2018 but said it would take years to complete.
Limitlane Ltd. bought the land in July 2020 with a plan to develop the whole site including the Enterprise & Employment zoned area where the former factory stood.
Laois County Council bought six acres from them in 2025 and got €1m in Just Transition Fund to build a small serviced business park of four sites and revive jobs to the town. All four sites have already been sold.