The High Court has allowed Martin Stapleton to amend parts of his challenge to An Bord Pleanála’s approval of a 131-unit build-to-rent development in Clontarf, while refusing three other requests made in a procedural motion. The court did not decide the underlying challenge to the planning permission.
The permission, granted by the board on 23 December 2021, relates to a proposed strategic housing development at Redcourt, Seafield Road, Dublin 3. Stapleton began judicial review proceedings in February 2022. The substantive hearing was scheduled to begin on 21 November 2023.
The motion followed disputes over the detail and form of Stapleton’s grounds of challenge. He sought approval of further particulars, permission to amend his statement of grounds, an extension of time if needed, and orders preventing or striking out objections by the board and developer Savona Limited that the grounds were insufficiently particularised.
Justice Humphreys refused the request to have the further particulars deemed good, saying the extent of the proposed clarification made amendment the preferable course. He also rejected the request to strike out parts of the board’s and Savona’s opposition papers, and the request to prevent them contesting the adequacy of the pleadings. Parties responding to judicial review proceedings may object to insufficient detail without first seeking particulars, the judge said.
The court allowed the amendment request in part. It found the proposed changes broadly arguable, accepted the explanation that the applicant’s lawyers had believed some points were already covered, and said the delay was limited in the circumstances. The judge said prejudice from dealing with new points alone was not enough to defeat an amendment; relevant prejudice had to arise from the lateness of the change.
Permission was subject to drafting conditions. The amended grounds must be a clean, consecutively numbered document, remove language framed as a reply to opposition papers, move legal argument and mixed questions of fact and law out of the factual section, and use clearer narrative wording. Some proposed amendments were refused, including a claim concerning a Dublin Bus email that had not been sent to the board. Others were allowed on terms or in part, including clarifications concerning daylight guidance, transport capacity, climate and water-related grounds.
The third amended statement of grounds must be filed within two weeks of the judgment, with a tracked copy provided to the opposing parties. The court also set a timetable for possible amended opposition papers. The judge’s provisional view was that there should be no order as to the motion’s costs, unless a party filed a reasoned legal submission within seven days. The substantive planning challenge remained to be heard.