Hotelier in Johnstown Estate container dispute seeks retention permission from An Bord Pleanála

Barry English, the owner of the four-star hotel, has appealed an order to remove containers blocking lodges on its grounds

Kieran O’Connell and Sean O’Connell, lodge owners in Johnstown Estate and Spa, Enfield, Co Meath: shipping containers and hoarding have been erected to stop hotel guests from seeing the owners’ graffiti claiming that the water supply has been cut off. Picture: Barry Cronin

A bitter dispute between Barry English, the owner of the four-star Johnstown Estate in Meath, and a number of owners of properties on the hotel grounds has escalated again, the Business Post can reveal.

The dispute has been running for several months and intensified last summer when a number of 40-foot steel shipping containers were placed around several of the private properties adjacent to the Johnstown Estate hotel.

Last year, Gerry O’Gorman and Kieran O’Connell, who acquired their lodges in 2006 and 2007, told the Business Post that in addition to their properties being blocked off by containers, the electricity and gas supply was also cut off.