The High Court has refused Christian Morris’s challenge to An Bord Pleanála’s decision to grant planning permission for a 512-apartment development in Howth, finding that he had not established a legal error in the Board’s decision.
Ms Justice Niamh Hyland delivered the judgment on 22 October 2020. The case was a judicial review, not a reconsideration of whether the development was desirable. The court said it could address only the specific legal arguments for which Mr Morris had been granted leave. It refused all the reliefs he sought, including an order quashing the permission.
The permission, granted on 3 April 2020 to Atlas GP Limited, covers a development with apartments, shops, a creche, restaurant and café on former industrial and commercial lands at Howth Road. The Board’s decision followed an inspector’s recommendation and was subject to conditions.
The court accepted that Fingal County Council’s website had displayed an archaeological report relating to a different site. It found, however, that this did not affect the legality of the Board’s decision: the incorrect report appeared after the public submission period had ended, the correct report was available in the Council chief executive’s report, and the inspector and Board had considered it.
The development exceeded the Fingal County Development Plan’s stated capacity of 498 homes for Howth and its three-to-five-storey limit for the site; the proposal reached eight storeys. The judge said the law allowed the Board to grant permission despite a material contravention in these circumstances. The Board had identified the contraventions and stated reasons for permitting them, relying on planning policy and statutory provisions. The court found no legal flaw in that approach.
The judgment also rejected challenges concerning flood risk, the Howth Urban Centre Strategy, the Howth Special Amenity Order, the site’s regional description and whether the proposal qualified as a strategic housing development. On flooding, the court noted that the assessment had considered a scenario without the existing railway sea defences and included a proposed sea wall within the development. The Bloody Stream issue was raised orally rather than pleaded; the judge said it would have failed in any event because the inspector had addressed it and the applicant supplied no evidence to displace the assessment.
Mr Morris did not pursue legal arguments on traffic or policing, accepting that those objections concerned planning merits. The judgment therefore did not decide whether the development was desirable on those grounds.