The High Court has allowed a judicial review challenge to proceed against planning permission for a large factory outlet centre at Dowdall’s Hill in Dundalk.
An Bord Pleanála granted permission on 25 February 2005 for a development comprising 81 retail units on a 13.06-hectare site, together with a mall, snack bars, a covered playground, crèche and parking for 1,120 cars and 20 coaches.
Applicants Desmond Mulholland and Donal Kinsella sought to have that decision quashed. Although their pleadings contained numerous individual points, Mr Justice Kelly said the challenge reduced to three issues: whether the Board gave adequate reasons for rejecting its inspector’s recommendation, whether the Environmental Impact Statement was adequate, and whether planning conditions unlawfully delegated decisions to others.
The inspector had recommended refusal. Among his reasons was that the Environmental Impact Statement was deficient in its treatment of cross-border effects, retail impact, traffic and alternative sites. He also treated the proposal as a normal retail development rather than a factory outlet centre.
The Board took a fundamentally different approach. It regarded the scheme as a factory outlet centre on strategically zoned land within Dundalk’s development boundary and considered the Environmental Impact Statement and additional information adequate.
The court held that the applicants had shown the required “substantial grounds” to pursue the first two issues. At this preliminary stage, that meant the arguments were sufficiently weighty and arguable to warrant a full judicial review hearing. The court did not decide that the Board’s reasons or the Environmental Impact Statement were actually unlawful.
However, Mr Justice Kelly rejected the challenge to conditions attached to the permission. In particular, he found no substantial ground for arguing that conditions governing the internal layout of retail units and possible alterations to a road link amounted to unlawful delegation.
Leave was therefore granted only on the adequacy-of-reasons and Environmental Impact Statement grounds.