The High Court has refused Carol Donnelly and Cavan Better Waste Management leave to appeal its decision rejecting their challenge to planning permission for a waste recycling facility in County Cavan. It made no order as to costs arising from the leave application.
Mr Justice Barr delivered the judgment electronically on 30 March 2022. The application was made under section 50A(7) of the Planning and Development Act 2000, which requires a point of law of exceptional public importance and that an appeal be desirable in the public interest.
The underlying judicial review concerned An Bord Pleanála’s decision to direct that planning permission be granted for a facility in the townlands of Lismagratty and Corranure. In a judgment delivered on 21 December 2021, the court refused the applicants’ request for relief. On 28 January 2022, it directed that the formal order would refuse all relief sought, with no order as to costs.
For the appeal application, the applicants proposed six questions concerning alleged errors in the planning decision and the court’s treatment of issues relating to appropriate assessment, mitigation measures and matters left for agreement after consent. These were the applicants’ proposed grounds; the court did not grant leave for an appeal on them.
The court said the applicants’ central argument concerned its interpretation of condition 7 in the planning permission. The court had treated the word “facility” as a typographical error that should be read as “building.” It said the point had been raised only in reply to the respondent’s argument, was not in the applicants’ statement of grounds and was not a ground on which they had been granted leave to bring judicial review. The court said it had resolved the issue narrowly, by interpreting the condition in the context of the planning application and the Board’s adoption of the inspector’s recommendations.
Mr Justice Barr concluded that the judgment had not decided novel points of Irish or European law, but had applied established principles. He was not satisfied that the judgment raised a point of law of exceptional public importance or had wider implications for future cases, and refused leave to appeal.
The judgment also noted the second named notice party’s concern that delay could cause it to lose the benefit of the permission, originally granted on 10 November 2017. The court said that concern was a factor but would not, by itself, have been sufficient to deny leave if a qualifying point of law had been identified.