Four businesses that were forced to seek temporary accommodation after a blaze ripped through a Bessbrook industrial estate in 2023 are still waiting for planning approval to rebuild… a year after plans were submitted.
The large-scale fire broke out at the Loughbrook Industrial Estate on the Camlough Road in December 2023.
It took over 60 firefighters, five fire appliances, a command support unit, an aerial appliance and water tanker more than 12 hours to bring the fire under control and an investigation was launched the following day to determine the cause.
Four of the businesses impacted – Ax Board, Antique Style Reproductions, Priority Truck Parts and HMG Properties – then submitted planning applications to rebuild their premises to Newry, Mourne and Down District Council (NMDDC) in February 2025.
A fifth business – Connex Offsite – were the only manufacturing business within the industrial estate to survive the fire and, as such, they reinstated their building “expeditiously” in order to “minimise disruption” and put in for retrospective planning permission.
However, the businesses that were left without premises have all had to rebuild to the best of their ability in temporary accommodations over the last two years.
This has been both costly and frustrating.
Armagh I contacted several of the business owners to get a sense of their frustrations and to find out if their plans to return to their former site had changed in that two year period.
One of the owners we spoke to, Paul Owens of Priority Truck Parts, was most concerned about increasing construction costs, citing the rising price of steel as a real worry.
He said: “The price to build now is getting ridiculous that when we build these units they are going to be worth less built than what it’s going to cost to build them.”
Paul explained that they were hoping to rebuild on a slightly smaller scale than their previous premises and said the lands were ready to be built upon, with all utilities in situ.
Kathy West of Ax Board, expressed similar frustrations to Paul.
Ax Board, which deals in kitchen and bedroom components, lost “everything” in the blaze, said Kathy.
Across their 18 years in business, they had built up their manufacturing, production, showroom, storage and everything needed for the day-to-day running of the business at the one site in Loughbrook.
They started life with four employees. By the time of the fire, they were employing a total of 43 people.
Like Paul, they have been left completely disillusioned by Council’s delay with their planning application.
In line with statutory requirements, Council should be working to a target of 15 weeks for the processing of new planning applications. At the time of publishing, the Loughbrook Industrial Estate applications have just surpassed their 52nd week.
Disgruntled by the lack of expediency, Kathy raised the argument that when a business or individual suffers a “catastrophic happening”, there should be more support from Council.
“We didn’t even know where to go,” she said. “It is the most awful situation but you put your application in and they treat you just like every other business that is putting a fresh application in.”
Ax Board along with all the other companies, paid “substantial fees” to submit their applications, to which she adds, “All you’re doing is treading water until they make these decisions.”
All of the displaced businesses have been left with the same level of ongoing uncertainty. They are each stuck in “limbo” waiting for the day they can move forward on a rebuild.
However, just a few miles away in Newry, another business suffered a similar fate to the Loughbrook companies when a fire burned through their go-karting facility in the Greenbank Industrial Estate.
The family-owned Formula Karting Racing was gutted, along with the neighbouring House of Murphy, when the blaze broke out in July 2024.
Their application was green-lighted by Council for rebuild in June 2025… while those in Loughbrook are still left waiting despite the fact their fire occurred six months earlier.
NMDDC were contacted for comment but at the time of publishing had not issued a response.
