The High Court has denied Shillelagh Quarries Limited leave to challenge An Bord Pleanála’s refusal of planning permission for the continued use and expansion of its quarry at Aughfarrell, Brittas, County Dublin.
In a judgment delivered on 27 June 2012, Mr Justice Hedigan said the operator had not shown substantial grounds for contending that the Board’s decision should be quashed. The case was heard on a “telescoped” basis, with the leave application and substantive judicial review issues considered together. The court denied leave; it did not quash the Board’s refusal or grant planning permission.
The application concerned continued quarry use, ancillary facilities and a 4.2-hectare extension, among other works. South Dublin County Council had required the operator to apply for permission and submit an environmental impact statement under section 261 of the Planning and Development Act 2000. The Council later granted permission subject to conditions, but the Board refused it on appeal in December 2010.
The operator argued that the Council’s section 261 process had established that the quarry began before 1 October 1964, and that the Board could not revisit that issue. The Board’s refusal said it was not satisfied that the operations then being conducted had begun before that date or were authorised by planning permission. It also concluded that the application included a significant element of retention permission and that environmental impact assessment rules prevented it from granting consent in the circumstances.
The court rejected the argument that the Council’s registration process barred the Board from making its own assessment. Citing an earlier High Court ruling, Mr Justice Hedigan said registration alone did not establish pre-1964 use or change a quarry’s planning status.
He also accepted that evidence before the Board supported a finding of substantial intensification since 1964. That included a 1978 High Court judgment finding that quarry operations had materially changed by then. The 2012 judgment records counsel for the Board telling the court that the operation had intensified fifteen-fold since the 1970s; the court also referred to the quarry’s stated scale at the time, including an extraction rate of 500,000 tonnes and 200 vehicle movements a day.
The judge concluded that the Board was entitled to treat the application as including retention permission and to take account of the European Court of Justice ruling in Commission v Ireland. The operator’s requested declarations and any requested stay were not granted.