IRISH retailer EZ Living Furniture has secured planning approval to build a new £5 million flagship store on Belfast’s Boucher Road, despite facing opposition from UK furniture giant DFS.
Founded by the Dilleen family in Galway in 1998, the business has 17 stores across the island of Ireland, but just one north of the border, at Derry’s Crescent Link.
The company is not to be confused with the Cork-based EZ Living Interiors, which currently operates from a number of northern retail parks and has its own flagship store in the Boucher Road area.
The plans for its new EZ Living Furniture flagship Belfast store centre on a site next to DFS and the Door Store on Boucher Road, which was previously the office base for Belfast-based construction group Gilbert-Ash.
The former offices have since been demolished.
The green light for the project was secured at Belfast City Council’s planning committee this week, where officials revealed planning consultants representing DFS, the Door store and the owner of the DFS premises, all lodged objections to the EZ Living application.
In the report presented to the committee, planning officials relayed a number of objections from the retailers and land owner, including claims “it does not respond positively to the local context” and the proposal does not respect the established building line along the Boucher Road.
Those objections were largely rejected by officials.
In its application, EZ Living Furniture said the new build store will represent an investment of around £5m, creating 25 new jobs.
