The High Court has refused Colbeam Limited’s application to make two residents’ continued challenge to planning permission conditional on their providing undertakings in damages. The ruling was made on domestic law grounds and does not decide the judicial review itself.
The residents are seeking to quash An Bord Pleanála’s 3 June 2021 permission for a development of 698 student bedspaces at Our Lady’s Grove, Goatstown Road, Dublin 14. They live nearby and object to what they consider overdevelopment. The court said the grounds on which they received leave to bring judicial review were public law grounds deemed substantial at that stage.
The application for undertakings arose in a dispute over the effect of the proceedings on Colbeam’s ability to build. In an earlier judgment, the court had refused to stay the permission for part of the works. A stay remained from the point when the prepared site was to be handed over to the main contractor, but it was unclear when that handover would occur. Colbeam had indicated it intended to proceed with development, although the court noted uncertainty over whether and when it could begin, including outstanding pre-commencement requirements.
Justice David Holland said the present proceedings were not, for now, preventing Colbeam from carrying out the works it intended to pursue. That made the prospect of loss to the company caused by the proceedings less clear than in cases where a legal challenge effectively holds a development on pause. The court also considered the public and private character of the residents’ challenge. Their objections included concerns about neighbourhood impact and residential amenity; the judge said the evidence did not give reason to doubt that they genuinely invoked local community interests, even if they also feared effects on their own amenities.
The court refused both the request for undertakings and Colbeam’s related request that the residents disclose their means to meet any liability under such an undertaking. The ruling does not prevent Colbeam from applying again if circumstances change, including if the proceedings later operate as a stay on its works. The judge said questions about costs protection and limits on proceedings becoming prohibitively expensive might then need consideration.
The judgment also directed the parties to correspond within 14 days to agree the terms of orders arising from it, and for the applicants’ solicitor to notify the registrar of the result. Questions about a protective costs order and the costs of the motions remained outstanding in this judgment.