The High Court found that quarrying at a site in Slane, Co Meath, had intensified into unauthorised development, but did not set out the final terms of its order in the judgment. Mr Justice Hedigan said he wanted counsel to address him on the exact terms.
Meath County Council had asked the court to restrain the quarry operator, Patrick Shiels, from continuing the unauthorised development and intensifying quarrying, and to require removal of machinery, equipment or materials used in it. The council’s proposed limit was 20 loads of stone a day.
The quarry had operated before 1 October 1964. The judge found that, from 2006, output rose to about 60 loads a day, blasting was used regularly, emissions increased and the area of quarrying expanded. He said the intensified operation was a distinct phase from the earlier use and amounted to a material change in land use. As the activities had neither planning permission nor exempted development status, he found them unauthorised under the Planning and Development Act 2000.
A central dispute concerned two versions of a 2004 quarry registration form. The council’s version recorded an operation of zero to 20 loads a day, described as small and confined, with no emissions. Shiels’s version recorded up to 200 loads a day, occasional blasting and a larger site area. The judge rejected Shiels’s evidence about the form and accepted the council’s version. He said there were grounds to suspect an effort to alter or forge an official form and referred the papers to the Director of Public Prosecutions for consideration of criminal proceedings. That referral was not a criminal finding.
The council relied on inspections, complaints from local residents, delivery records and blast records. Those records showed an average of 221 loads a week from January 2006 to February 2007. Shiels argued that the operation was a continuation of historic quarrying and that restricting it to 20 loads a day would make his business unsustainable. He also relied on expert evidence that dust, noise and blasting emissions were not excessive and that blasting had not caused alleged structural damage.
The judge said the council’s application was within time and that the County Manager had properly authorised proceedings. In deciding whether to grant relief, he considered the respondent’s conduct and the public interest, including his submission that the quarry employed 50 people locally and supplied stone for infrastructure projects. He concluded that the court should exercise its discretion to grant the reliefs sought. The judgment records that conclusion but leaves the exact order’s terms to be addressed by counsel.