The High Court has ruled that a substitute-consent application relating to a quarry at Windmill Hill, Rathcoole, was invalid because its location maps marked out 40.875 hectares instead of the 5.95 hectares covered by the application.
Mr Justice Max Barrett delivered judgment on 12 March 2020 in judicial review proceedings brought by Laurence Behan against An Bord Pleanála. The court said the six maps submitted with the application showed a parcel of land far larger than the site to which substitute consent was sought. It described the discrepancy as a serious and material defect, making the application invalid under the Planning and Development Act 2000 and the relevant regulations.
An inspector had identified problems with the application in a memorandum to the Board in April 2014. The court said the Board could not properly conclude that the application complied with the mapping requirements, even though it was not bound by the inspector’s advice. It also found that, after an inspector’s site inspection, the Board could not properly treat the application as other than substantially incorrect.
The application was lodged on 24 October 2013. The Board did not decide it until 21 September 2018. The court found that the delay breached the Board’s statutory duty to progress applications expeditiously, Mr Behan’s constitutional right to fair procedures, and the EU right to good administration. It identified a 17-month period, from December 2016 to May 2018, when the Board took no steps to progress the application. The court said a shortage of Board members did not adequately excuse the delay.
The Board had also refused a related application for continued development under section 37L. The court concluded that this decision could not stand once the substitute-consent decision fell, because further development depended on substitute consent for the related quarry application.
The judgment did not accept all of Mr Behan’s arguments. It rejected his claims concerning an alleged failure to refer to a protected structure and a possibly deficient site notice, noting gaps in the evidence and that the application before the Board concerned quarrying works. It also rejected the argument that a remedial environmental impact statement ceased to be such a statement if later found deficient.
The court said it would grant specified reliefs, including certiorari in respect of the refusal of permission for continued development under Board reference PL 06S.QD.0003. It proposed wording changes to two other reliefs and said it would hear the parties on those changes. The judgment therefore records the relief the court said it would grant and the proposed amendments; it does not set out a final order on those amendments.