The High Court has found that Fingal County Council has unlawfully failed for years to adopt a local area plan for Malahide, but has rejected a challenge aimed at stopping permanent public realm and pedestrianisation works on New Street.
Mr Justice Humphreys delivered judgment on April 11, 2025, in proceedings brought by Nicola Byrne.
New Street, a central street of about 150 metres, was first pedestrianised temporarily during the Covid period. Fingal later decided to make the arrangement permanent through works including wider footpaths, restricted delivery access, cycle parking, landscaping, outdoor dining areas, drainage upgrades and new public lighting.
Byrne challenged both the planning process and An Bord Pleanála's November 2023 determination that an environmental impact assessment report was not required.
She succeeded on one significant point. The court held that Malahide falls within the statutory category of towns for which a local area plan must be made. Humphreys J found that Fingal had failed to comply with that obligation since about June 2020.
However, the judge rejected Byrne's argument that this failure invalidated the New Street project. He held that decision-making could not automatically grind to a halt whenever an overarching statutory plan was absent. The proposed pedestrianisation also had support in Fingal's county development plan.
The court rejected claims that Fingal had failed adequately to consider the cumulative effects of the works alongside other Malahide projects. It also upheld the Board's treatment of the 0.22-hectare New Street works as below the two-hectare threshold for mandatory environmental impact assessment in a business district.
Arguments concerning possible cumulative traffic and road-safety effects with the Broadmeadow Way were also rejected. The court found that the Board had material before it supporting the conclusion that the surrounding road network could absorb redistributed traffic and that Byrne had not displaced that assessment with evidence.
The court therefore issued a declaration recording Fingal's continuing breach over the missing local area plan but dismissed the remainder of Byrne's case. A limited costs order in her favour against Fingal was proposed because of her success on that issue.