The High Court has dismissed a judicial review challenge to planning and retention permission for a supermarket and filling station development at Treanrevagh, College Road, Mountbellew, County Galway.
Michael Duffy challenged An Coimisiún Pleanála’s June 2024 decision granting Cahermorris Developments Ltd permission, subject to 17 conditions, for works including retention and completion of an Aldi supermarket, a fuel filling station and associated water and wastewater connections.
Mr Justice Richard Humphreys dismissed the proceedings on several independent grounds. First, he found that Mr Duffy lacked the sufficient interest required to maintain the challenge. Mr Duffy had not participated personally before Galway County Council or in the appeal to the commission. Although he acted as agent for third-party appellant Barry McCormack, the judge held that an agent could not derive personal standing from a principal. Mr Duffy also did not live close to the development.
The court additionally found the pleadings inadequate. Humphreys J said many grounds consisted of general references to environmental and planning law without a sufficiently clear link between the alleged error, the facts and the relief sought.
Even if those preliminary problems had not arisen, the judge held that the substantive complaints would still fail.
Mr Duffy argued, among other matters, that wastewater issues required further appropriate assessment and that an earlier planning condition concerning wastewater infrastructure prevented the later permission. The court found that he had not shown any flaw in the commission’s appropriate-assessment screening. It also held that a later planning decision could lawfully amend the effect of an earlier permission.
Challenges to the planning application’s site notices also failed. The court found no proof that a yellow notice was required and said the regulations did not require the site notice itself to be located in a public place.
The proceedings were dismissed. The court provisionally proposed no order as to costs, subject to written submissions, and listed the matter for 18 May 2026 to confirm the orders.