The High Court has directed three respondents to stop work on a vehicular access to the R297 near the Diamond Coast Hotel in Enniscrone and to restore the associated hard standing to its pre-development condition. The court found the access works were unauthorised development and were not exempt from planning permission.
In a judgment delivered on 12 May 2017, Ms Justice Faherty granted relief under section 160 of the Planning and Development Act 2000. She said she would hear further submissions on the precise wording of the orders. The judgment therefore records the court’s proposed orders; it does not set out their final wording.
The applicant, Strategic Capital Investment Fund plc, owns the hotel. The adjacent lands, owned by the respondents, include part of the area previously used for hotel parking. The applicant said works began in January 2016, including fencing, an access route from the adjacent lands to the R297 and a hard surfaced area. It argued that planning permission was required and had not been obtained.
The first respondent, Michael Naughton, said the road works related to an agreement to provide access to Enniscrone Golf Club. He also argued that the works were exempt, trivial or de minimis, and that the dispute was commercial. A consultant engineer for the respondents described the entrance as temporary and said the works were on their lands. The applicant’s planning consultant disputed those positions.
The court found the relevant planning permission, granted in 2008, had expired in February 2013 and had not been extended. It accepted that the access and hard standing formed part of a route to the R297, a regional road more than four metres wide. The court concluded that the access could not rely on the cited exemptions in the 2001 Planning and Development Regulations or section 4(1)(h) of the 2000 Act. It rejected the claim that the entrance was merely temporary and found the development was not trivial.
The court did not order removal of the fence foundations or restoration of that part of the adjacent lands. It said the foundations were on the respondents’ property and made no finding that any future fence or wall would qualify for an exemption. The judgment also records that about 46 car spaces and four to six coach spaces previously available to the hotel were unusable following the respondents’ purchase of the adjacent lands.