The High Court has granted Donegal County Council’s application to stop unauthorised quarrying at Calhame, near Letterkenny, and ordered P Bonar Plant Hire Ltd, trading as Bonar’s Quarry, to comply with restoration requirements.
In a judgment delivered on 18 May 2021, Mr Justice Max Barrett found that quarrying had continued after the site’s planning permission expired in June 2018. The court said the operation was unauthorised and was being carried out in breach of Irish planning law and relevant European environmental law. It granted the reliefs sought by the Council, including the requested costs, subject to a limited opportunity to object to costs.
The Council’s case relied on site inspections and enforcement action. Its officers reported quarrying and processing at the site in 2019 and 2020, despite an enforcement notice requiring the activity to stop. In an affidavit, company director Mr Bonar maintained that quarrying could continue in what he called the “Existing Quarry” because it had been operating before October 1964. He also said the company employed about 30 people.
The judge rejected that defence. He found that the 2008 planning permission and its implementation had created a single, enlarged quarry planning unit, superseding any entitlement to rely on pre-1964 use. The permission had expired, and its restoration condition could not be separated from the permission’s benefits. The court also cited the planning board’s 2019 refusal of a further application, which raised concerns about environmental assessment and potential effects on the Leannan River Special Area of Conservation.
The Council had sought orders restraining further quarrying and related work, directing compliance with a landscape and restoration plan, and declaring the development unauthorised. The judgment says those reliefs were granted. If the company objected to the Council’s costs, it had 14 days to notify the registrar; any hearing would address costs only and would not provide an appeal against the judgment.
The court also considered a separate application by Peter Sweetman against the company, with Kevin McLaughlin and Joseph McLaughlin named as notice parties. Justice Barrett said Sweetman would have succeeded had his application been heard first. However, because the Council’s orders appeared to achieve the practical relief sought, the court invited Sweetman’s advisers to identify within 14 days any aspect not covered. The court reserved its final order in that application and said it would also hear submissions on costs.