Primary Care Centre plan finally lodged for Cork's suburban Douglas at old woollen mills site

Access to the proposed €20m-plus development will be through the main mills entry point by Tesco/Douglas Village Shopping Centre and O’Sullivan’s bar, for a triangular greenfield site at the western end of the 1880s-founded mill complex with a broad mix of existing tenants in converted mill buildings.

The July application from an entity listed as Infrastructure Investment Fund IVAC Valley Healthcare Fund is for a 5,200 sq m four-storey building to include two GP practices plus 124 sq m retail unit. The application by the private developer Valley Healthcare is accompanied by a 171-page consultants traffic report.

The plan for the city’s southern suburbs was lodged by the private developers Valley Healthcare, now owned by international infrastructure investors John Laing, who already operate 20 primary care centres (PCCs) in Ireland with six more in the planning stages.

Valley opened a PCC in Ballincollig, Cork, earlier this year in a building of comparable size (66,000 sq ft) to include three GP group practices at the former Murphy Barracks site, capable of serving a catchment of up to 70,000.

Valley Healthcare also operate PCCs in Co Cork locations such as Carrigtwohill, Clonakilty, Fermoy and Mitchelstown, while the greater city area has PCC facilities at Blackrock, Gurranabraher, and Carrialine with a further one mooted for Togher.

The application for the Douglas PCC site was made via Ballincollig-based Harry Walsh Planning for Valley Healthcare, and was accompanied by a letter of support from the land owner, Ann Murphy MD of St Patrick’s Woollen Mills.

The complex dates to the 1880s and was one of a number of mills in the Douglas/Donnybrook valley area, and retained elements of mill use up until the 1970s. The mill, which manufactured tweeds, was acquired by the Murphy family in 1942 and second generation owner the well-known businessman Denis Murphy (who died in 2002, also noted for setting up Cork Swansea Ferries) adapted it as an industrial estate, now with a range of occupants including homewares/decor, retail, medical/veterinary and food.

A PCC has been in the wings for Douglas for at least five years, with plans reportedly hit by covid for a period, and the site was selected as most accessible for the greater Douglas catchment which now stretches up into the surrounding hills around Rochestown, Donnybrook, Grange, and Frankfield.

Other health service investment is ongoing at the sprawling St Finbarr’s Hospital campus on the city end of the Douglas Road.

Douglas’s population is put at over 30,000, and is expected to grow by a further 7,000 in coming years with 2,800 new homes in the wings also according to supporting documents with the planning application.

On traffic movements, it accept the car will be the prominent mode of access given the profile of likely users and notes that 93% of visits to Valley Healthcare’s new Ballincollig centre is by car.

The development allows for 100 car parking spaces, and 40 bike spaces and the traffic report also acknowledge greenway route improvement and public transport links. It estimates an additional 133 car movements at morning peak and 113 extra in the evening , above the current levels and says the increase is less than 5% of traffic at the junction.

Meanwhile, a statement on behalf of HSE Cork Kerry Community Healthcare said the HSE would be the main tenant of the Douglas PCC under an operation lease mechanism, and for which planning has now been lodged.

“Timelines around projects of this scale are subject to significant variation, and are dependent on a number of variables outside our — and the developer’s — control. For that reason, a timeline of up to 30 months allows for a sensible contingency time frame and an expected completion date of Q4 2026,” it stated.

“The Primary Care Operational Lease model involves an open competitive process to identify a preferred provider, based on criteria such as financial cost, GP involvement, delivery risks, building design and location suitability,” added the HSE.