The High Court has refused an extension of time for a Carrick-on-Shannon shopkeeper’s challenge to Leitrim County Council’s decision to proceed with a town regeneration project without an environmental impact assessment (EIA). The court did not decide whether an EIA was legally required.
The judicial review concerned a project involving street and car park works and a public boardwalk beside the River Shannon. The applicant argued that the overall scheme, as expanded during detailed design, exceeded the two-hectare threshold for urban development in a business district. She said the boardwalk should be counted as part of that district. The Council argued that the boardwalk was in an area designated for riverside development, outside the relevant business district, and that the challenge was brought too late.
The project was initially notified for public consultation in November 2018. The Council’s screening report stated that the proposed development covered 1.86 hectares in total, with 1.54 hectares in the business district. Later design-stage changes brought the total project area to 2.2342 hectares. The court treated 18 February 2020, when the Council’s planning department cleared the revised plans without a new Part 8 consultation, as the relevant decision date for the statutory time limit. The usual period to seek judicial review had expired by mid-April 2020.
Justice Cian Ferriter accepted that there was good reason for the applicant not to bring proceedings between February and 7 August 2020. The revised area information was available on the Council’s file, but there had been no formal public notification of it, and the applicant had no good reason to suspect the project had grown beyond the threshold.
The court found, however, that the applicant had information showing the project exceeded two hectares from 7 August 2020. Even on her most favourable account, she had the relevant information by 22 September, when her solicitor received the Council’s compliance report. The application for leave to bring judicial review was formally opened on 16 November. The court found no adequate explanation for the delay during that period, when the matter was within the applicant’s control.
The judge said the alleged breach of EIA obligations was a relevant consideration, but it did not tip the balance in the applicant’s favour. Because the challenge was out of time and an extension was refused, the court considered it unnecessary to decide the substantive EIA arguments and refused the relief sought.