The High Court has dismissed a judicial review brought by Frances Roache and her son Fred Roache against An Bord Pleanála’s permission for the 11-turbine Ballymanus Wind Farm in County Wicklow.
In a judgment delivered on 21 May 2024, Ms Justice Siobhán Phelan rejected challenges concerning the assessment of the family’s drinking water, the project’s visual impact and turbine height and setback. She refused the relief sought and dismissed the proceedings. The court did not determine costs, saying it would hear the parties on consequential matters.
The project was granted permission by the Board in April 2019, despite a recommendation from its inspector and an earlier refusal by Wicklow County Council, both of which cited visual impact. The proposed turbines are up to 150 metres high. The permission covers lands in six townlands, including Roddenagh, where the Killaduff Spring supplying the Roaches’ farmhouse and land originates.
The applicants argued that the environmental assessment wrongly treated their farmhouse as having a private well and understated the spring’s catchment area. Justice Phelan accepted that the well assumption was incorrect, but found the spring had been assessed separately in the environmental impact assessment report. She also found the Board was entitled to rely on later site investigations and the report’s mapped groundwater zone of contribution, which excluded turbine 4 and a meteorological mast. An earlier consultation map showed a broader area, but the judge said it addressed both surface and groundwater and predated those investigations.
The judge concluded that the applicants’ appeal submission had asserted that the broader area was relevant without explaining the basis or identifying the earlier map. In that context, she found the Board’s reasons for relying on the report’s assessment were discernible from the material before it. She also ruled that new expert evidence produced during the court proceedings could not be used to overturn the Board’s decision on the basis advanced.
On visual impact, the court found the Board had material including the environmental report, viewshed studies and photomontages to support its decision to disagree with the inspector and council. The judge said the Board could conclude that the landscape had significant man-made interventions and that the project would not unacceptably affect protected Prospect 54.
The applicants also argued that a draft setback approach in Planning Circular PL 5/2017 called for four times turbine height, subject to a 500-metre minimum. The judge found the circular had been considered but did not create a binding 600-metre requirement.
A separate error in the permission’s stated maximum turbine tip height had been corrected by the Board in 2020, reducing it from 156.8 metres to the sought 150 metres. The judgment records that part of the case had thereby become moot.