The High Court has referred 11 questions about environmental law to the Court of Justice of the European Union in a judicial review challenge to approval of the Kilkenny Northern Ring Road extension. The referral leaves the challenge unresolved: the High Court did not quash An Bord Pleanála’s decision or decide the applicants’ request for certiorari in this judgment.
The case concerns the board’s July 2014 approval of a proposed road of about 1.5 kilometres. The scheme would cross protected natural areas, including a Special Protection Area and a candidate Special Area of Conservation. Four applicants sought to have the consent quashed, arguing, among other things, that the environmental impact statement did not adequately address alternatives and that the appropriate assessment and Natura Impact Statement were deficient.
The proposed alternative at issue was a bridge spanning the floodplain between the River Nore channel and Bleach Road. The council considered it but rejected it early, principally on cost grounds, without modelling a specific design or assessing its environmental impact in detail. The judgment also records that the board’s inspector found the application information inadequate and drafted a request for further information, including a revised environmental impact statement and Natura Impact Statement. The board granted consent instead.
The judge’s account identifies questions about the extent of habitat and species information required in a Natura Impact Statement; whether impacts on species contributing to protected habitats, and on species or habitats outside a site’s boundaries, must be addressed; and what environmental information must be given about alternatives. Other questions concern whether construction details can be left until after consent, how scientific concerns about further surveys must be recorded, and what reasons the board must give when it departs from its inspector’s recommendation.
The judgment describes the board’s reasons on ecology and appropriate assessment as brief, while also setting out the parties’ competing interpretations of the evidence. It does not resolve those legal questions. Justice Richard Humphreys said they were not acte clair and ordered that they be referred to the EU court. He also directed the applicants to prepare papers for the referral, with the timetable to be discussed with counsel.
The proceedings are a review of the board’s decision-making, not a fresh decision on the road proposal. The judgment therefore records a procedural step in the challenge, not a final ruling on whether the consent was lawful.