The High Court has set aside permission for a judicial review challenge to six planning permissions for wind-farm grid connections in Co Mayo, finding that the applicant’s five remaining grounds were not pleaded with sufficient precision.
Mr Justice Cregan’s judgment concerned applications by Mayo County Council and PWWP Developments Limited to set aside leave granted on 30 January 2017 by the High Court. David Malone, the applicant, sought to challenge permissions granted by the council on 1 November 2016 for connections to the national grid via the proposed Cloontooa Wind Farm.
The judge heard the applications on three occasions. After the first hearing, Malone was allowed to revise his statement of grounds using material from his affidavit and legal submissions, but was not permitted to add new grounds. The court considered the third draft. Three of the original eight grounds had been abandoned, leaving five.
The judgment’s focus was whether those grounds met Order 84 rule 20(3), which requires a judicial-review applicant to state each ground precisely, provide particulars where appropriate and identify the facts relied upon. The judge said the first ground, which appeared to allege that separate applications improperly divided a single project, did not make clear what the legal case was or identify supporting facts. The judgment also records that the applicant’s environmental impact statement was not exhibited.
The second ground alleged that three applications were accepted while related appeals were before An Bord Pleanála, contrary to section 37(5)(a) of the Planning and Development Act 2000. The judge said the factual material largely concerned alleged environmental-impact-statement deficiencies and did not explain the asserted statutory breach. The applicant’s counsel had acknowledged an incorrect statutory reference in the draft.
The remaining grounds alleged failures in environmental impact assessment and in public notification. The judge found that the third ground did not specify how section 172(1G) had been breached; the fourth relied on general statements of legal requirements without identifying specific supporting facts; and the fifth cited the Public Participation Directive as a whole without identifying a particular provision or setting out supporting facts.
The court set aside the grant of leave to apply for judicial review. The judgment addresses the adequacy of the pleaded grounds at this stage; it does not determine whether the six permissions were lawful or resolve the environmental allegations on their merits.