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THE company behind a £54 million Strule Riverside development has insisted that plans for a major mixed-use scheme – including a large food store, retail units, a primary healthcare facility, leisure uses and a hotel – remain firmly in place for lands just off the Derry Road in Omagh.
The development, formerly known as Opportunity Omagh, has been in the pipeline for more than 15 years and was originally promoted as a 300,000 square foot strategic site anchored by a major superstore.
Its location beside the Strule Shared Educational Campus was viewed as a key advantage, with promotional material describing it as being adjacent to one of Europe’s largest shared education campuses.
Planning approval for the scheme was granted in 2010 by then Environment Minister Edwin Poots, and the site is also described by developers as a gateway location on the newly approved A5 route to Belfast and Dublin, serving a large regional catchment.
Urban Pulse, the company spearheading the project through Gateway Ltd, currently lists the development as ‘under construction’.
That position has now been reiterated in recent correspondence to Fermanagh and Omagh District Council.
In a letter submitted to the council, legal representatives for Urban Pulse challenged a statement contained within a separate planning application for a proposed Sainsbury’s development, which claimed that ‘no work has ever started on this development’.
Michael Graham, director of Belfast-based consultancy Tetra Tech, said the suggestion that planning consent had lapsed or that there were no plans for the project to proceed was ‘incorrect’. He said pre-commencement planning conditions were discharged during 2016 and 2017, with construction works beginning later in 2017.
“These works included full site clearance and levelling, access works, the installation of major drainage infrastructure and the construction of foundations and subfloors,” Mr Graham said.
“Moreover, construction work has been ongoing since 2017 and continues at present on site.”
When first unveiled in 2008, plans for Opportunity Omagh included a hotel, business and media centre, multi-screen cinema and bowling alley, with projections of up to 1,000 construction jobs and a further 1,000 permanent positions.
However, despite those ambitions, the Derry Road site has remained largely undeveloped in the years since planning approval was granted.
