The High Court has declared that An Bord Pleanála failed to meet its statutory duties when further information was submitted in the planning process for the Seven Hills wind farm in Co. Roscommon. It dismissed the applicants’ request to quash the permission, finding they had not shown that the notification failure harmed their own participation rights.
The judgment concerns a November 2023 board decision granting Energia Renewables ROI Limited permission for a 17-turbine development. John Joe Kennedy and the Wind Turbine Action Group South Roscommon challenged that decision by judicial review. The court did not overturn the permission.
The dispute focused in part on two tranches of additional information submitted by the developer: a response to observations on 31 March 2023 and a reply to a board request for further information on 7 July 2023. The board asked the developer to publicise the information. The court held that section 37F(2) of the Planning and Development Act 2000 assigned the notification functions to the board itself, and that the board could not transfer those statutory duties to the developer.
The judgment records problems with how the information was notified and circulated. The developer’s letter to Roscommon County Council included the July material but not the March submission, although the public notice said the additional information could be inspected at the council offices. A covering letter also named the Irish Examiner, while the advertisement had appeared in the Irish Times. The court said the notice was sufficiently clear to put a reasonably diligent person on inquiry, and that the applicants had not established that they were unfairly disadvantaged.
The court therefore refused certiorari, the remedy that would have quashed the board’s decision. It instead made a declaration that, in relation to the information submitted on 31 March and 7 July 2023, the board failed to make it available for inspection, give notice of its availability and invite further submissions or observations within a specified period.
The applicants’ other challenges—including complaints about the application particulars and the board’s environmental assessments—were unsuccessful. The court said the applicants had not discharged their evidential burden of showing a flaw in the decision-making process. It also struck out a late affidavit from applicant Ms Rose Burke, finding it substantially inadmissible and beyond the permitted scope of a reply.
The court’s provisional costs order would award the applicants costs against the board, limited to what would have been incurred had the case been confined to the successful notification issue. The parties may make further submissions on costs, including costs of a discovery and particulars motion.