The High Court has dismissed a judicial review brought by Sinead Kerins and Mark Stedman against permission for 416 homes at 326-328 South Circular Road, Dublin 8.
The permission, granted by An Bord Pleanála in September 2020, allows five blocks of residential units. The board’s inspector had recommended refusal, citing significant adverse landscape and visual impacts and effects on nearby residential amenities. The board decided to grant permission despite that recommendation.
The applicants began their challenge in November 2020. In an earlier judgment, the High Court rejected their domestic-law grounds and referred questions to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). The CJEU ruled in March 2023 that a masterplan falls within the scope of the Strategic Environmental Assessment Directive only if it meets specified conditions, including being binding on authorities competent to grant development consent. It also ruled that the Environmental Impact Assessment Directive does not preclude national rules requiring authorities to follow building-height guidelines that have undergone environmental assessment.
In this judgment, Humphreys J applied those answers to the remaining grounds. The court had previously found that the masterplan at issue was not binding on the board under Irish law. It therefore concluded that the plan did not fall within the directive’s scope. The court said the applicants’ remaining substantive relief seeking to quash the permission did not succeed. Other grounds had already been rejected, withdrawn or were not pursued after the CJEU ruling.
The court stressed that it was deciding the legal arguments properly pleaded and pursued, not whether the development was meritorious on planning grounds. It said the order should not be read as a judgment on the proposal’s planning merits.
The proceedings were dismissed. The court directed that the order be perfected with no order as to costs, including costs before the CJEU, unless a written submission setting out reasons to the contrary or addressing another consequential issue was delivered within seven days. If an application was made, the matter was to be listed on the next convenient Monday.