Contested Glasthule field reverts to use as sports ground

Seven years after a High Court battle and an abortive €5 million bid by businessman Ben Dunne to turn it into a gym, the fate of a south Dublin field appears to be settled.

The former Presentation Brothers sports ground in Glasthule was sold to Mr Dunne in 2008 but plans to develop it met with significant local opposition.

In 2013 Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council pulled off something of a coup when it secured the 4.3 acre site for a relative bargain of €1.6 million, although its future remained uncertain.

With heavy granite bedrock, the land is deemed unsuitable for property development and the local authority is at the finishing stages of a plan to reinstate the playing fields – now completely overgrown – and provide changing rooms, walking paths and a playground.

It appears to be the final episode of a long-running saga. The land had been the subject of a legal action in 2008 in which the High Court overturned a decision by the local authority to preserve the use of the lands as sports grounds.

Not long after that, Mr Dunne, the former supermarket tycoon, made a deal to purchase the land for a sum in the region of €5 million. However, after objections to his gym proposals, he withdrew the planning application and sold the field to the council for €1.625 million in 2013.