The High Court has quashed two An Bord Pleanála decisions that a proposed residential drug rehabilitation facility at the former Old National School in Ballivor was development and was not exempted development.
The judicial review was brought by Narconon Trust against the Board. Mr Justice Heslin ruled that the Board lacked power to decide the two 2018 referrals because, in substance, they sought to question the validity of an earlier Meath County Council declaration on the same issue. The court found no material change in the relevant planning facts or circumstances between the council’s 2016 declaration and the later referrals.
In September 2016, the council declared that changing the permitted nursing home use at the site to a residential drug rehabilitation facility was exempted development. That declaration was not appealed to the Board or challenged by judicial review. The court found that Narconon relied on it when purchasing the property and carrying out construction works. Evidence before the court put the purchase price at €1.3 million and total expenditure on the facility at approximately €9.05 million by January 2019.
In February 2018, Ballivor Community Group and Trim Municipal District Council separately asked the council to consider whether the same change of use was exempted. The council referred both questions to the Board under section 5(4) of the Planning and Development Act 2000. The Board decided on 19 November 2018 that the change was development and was not exempted.
The judge found that both notice parties knew of the 2016 declaration when making their applications, objected to it, and sought a different answer to the same question without relying on changed planning circumstances. He held that section 50 required challenges to decisions made under the Act to be brought by judicial review. The Board’s decisions therefore breached that statutory framework and were made without lawful authority.
The judgment says the Board may not be precluded in every case from considering a later referral where a prior declaration exists; changed planning facts could make a later case materially different. The court did not decide that wider question. It also did not determine whether the Board’s reasoning on the planning merits was unreasonable, because that issue did not need to be reached.
The court granted certiorari quashing the Board’s two decisions. The supplied judgment text does not state a separate order on costs or the other reliefs sought.