The High Court has refused a judicial review challenge by St. Margaret’s Recycling and Transfer Centre Limited to An Bord Pleanála’s refusal of permission for its waste facility at Sandyhill, St. Margaret’s, County Dublin, near Dublin Airport.
The application sought permanent continuation of the facility, handling up to 24,000 tonnes of waste a year, retention of associated buildings and permission for stormwater infrastructure. Fingal County Council had granted a three-year permission in April 2021. The company and a third party appealed. The Board refused permission in December 2021, citing the development’s conflict with the site’s airport zoning and insufficient information to assess effects on protected European sites and the wider environment.
In a judgment delivered on 20 February 2024, Ms Justice Siobhán Phelan upheld the zoning reason. The site is zoned for Dublin Airport, where waste disposal and recovery are not permitted. The development plan allows reasonable intensification of certain non-conforming uses, but the court ruled that the baseline must be an existing valid permission or a use immune from enforcement—not a temporary permission that has expired. The last permanent permission addressing annual waste throughput allowed 10,000 tonnes. Later temporary permissions, including one allowing 21,900 tonnes a year, did not continue after expiry. The proposed 24,000-tonne use therefore could not rely on those expired permissions as its baseline.
The company also argued that the Board had wrongly treated the application as seeking 24,900 tonnes rather than the revised 24,000 tonnes. The judge found that the inspector and Board had considered the reduction and that the difference would not alter the zoning assessment against the 10,000-tonne baseline.
The court also rejected the challenge to the Board’s environmental information reasons. The inspector had identified missing detail on waste streams and processes, emissions, monitoring, fire prevention and firewater discharge. The judge found that the Board was entitled to reach its own assessment, distinct from the council’s earlier screening, and that its conclusion that more information was needed was neither irrational nor inadequately explained.
The judge said the Board had not decided whether a full environmental impact assessment or appropriate assessment was required; that question remained open pending further information. She also found that the inspector’s concern that past waste limits had been exceeded did not mean the Board refused permission based on assumed future non-compliance.
Because the zoning ground independently supported refusal, any possible flaw in the environmental assessment reasoning would not have changed the outcome. The court refused the application for relief. It did not grant or determine a new planning permission.