The High Court has refused Mountbrook Homes Limited’s application to halt construction of a distributor road between Ballycullen Road and Stocking Lane in south County Dublin, finding that the road-spur drawing at the centre of its main concern had eventually been submitted.
Mountbrook brought the application under section 160 of the Planning and Development Act 2000 against Oldcourt Developments Limited. It sought orders requiring compliance with conditions attached to the road’s planning permission and an injunction stopping further works until those conditions were met.
Mountbrook said a condition required revised drawings showing a spur road from a roundabout south to the boundary of Site H. Its own lands, identified as Site J in the Ballycullen-Oldcourt Action Area Plan, lie south of Site H. The company argued that the spur was needed to prevent its land becoming inaccessible from the distributor road. It alleged that drawings submitted by Oldcourt initially stopped short of the boundary and that other planning proposals could undermine the connection.
Oldcourt disputed the claims. It said it had kept the planning authority informed, substantially complied with the conditions and acted in good faith. Its evidence included an updated drawing which, it said, showed the spur reaching the Site H boundary. The parties also disputed the extent and timing of compliance with conditions concerning landscaping, water and drainage, gateway features and archaeological assessment.
Justice Michael Peart found that Oldcourt had not complied with some conditions in a timely way before work began. He considered some alleged shortcomings, including aspects of the landscaping plans and gateway features, to be close to trivial in the circumstances. On archaeology, he found that any non-compliance was more apparent than real, and that the work and consultation had not put the condition’s purpose at risk.
The judge said Mountbrook had reasonable grounds for concern about the earlier drawings. But the condition required revised drawings to be submitted; it did not, at that stage, require the spur itself to have been built. The latest drawing showed the extension reaching the boundary, so the judge considered the condition had been complied with, albeit late. Whether the spur is actually constructed would depend on later events, and its absence at the time was not itself a breach of the permission.
The court did not decide whether the separate planning application by Elier Developments Limited would affect Mountbrook’s access. Peart said that application was a matter for the ordinary planning process, in which Mountbrook had participated.
Although the judge had reservations about statements that all matters had been agreed with the planning authority, he concluded that Oldcourt had dealt with the council honestly and had not sought to evade its obligations. Given the late compliance, the remaining concerns and the balance of convenience, he declined to stop construction. He refused the relief sought.