The High Court has quashed Cork County Council’s permission for an extension to a farm building after finding that a required site notice was not placed at a second entrance to the site.
The judicial review concerned planning permission granted on 11 November 2011 for an extension comprising a slatted unit and machinery shed at Moneycusker, Tomes, Macroom, Co Cork. The applicant, Joe Kelly, lives opposite the proposed development. Noel Kelleher, the notice party, had lodged the planning application.
A site notice was placed at the main entrance to Kelleher’s property, but not where a right of way to the site begins opposite Kelly’s house. The respondent council argued that the right of way was only an access point, not an entrance, and that the regulations did not require a notice there. It also argued that Kelleher did not own the land at that point.
The court rejected those submissions. Having considered photographs, a map and other evidence, it found the right of way was both an access and an entrance to the development site. It held that the requirement to post notices at all entrances applied even though both entrances were on the same public road. The court also concluded that the application site adjoined a public road, so the alternative rule for sites that do not adjoin one did not apply. It said the notice could have been posted under rights reasonably necessary to use the right of way, and that the applicant’s consent was not required.
The court accepted that the notice at the main entrance met the visibility and legibility requirements. It rejected the argument that it had to be visible to motorists travelling in both directions, saying the regulations did not set that standard.
The court concluded that failing to post a notice at the entrance opposite Kelly’s house breached Article 19 of the Planning and Development Regulations 2001. The parties had agreed that non-compliance with that article meant the permission had to be quashed. The court therefore quashed the council’s decision to grant permission.
Separately, the court said the planning drawings failed to show a public well 65 metres from the proposed site and a stream 85 metres away downhill. It considered those omissions material departures from Article 23(1)(a), which requires specified features on or near a development site to be shown on plans. The judgment’s stated order was to quash the planning permission on the site-notice ground.