Irishplanningnews.ie

An Bord Pleanala have overturned the decision of Clare County Council to refuse a 10 year permission for a 5 turbine windfarm at Moneypoint Generating Station on the north shore of the Shannon Estuary. Each wind turbine will have an overall maximum dimension of 152 metres, comprising a tower 95-100 metres high, with a diameter of about four metres at the base, to which three blades of 52-55 metres length will be attached.

The Council had refused permission based on the inadequacy of the Natura Impact Statement submitted by the applicant (ESB Wind Developments Ltd).

The Board took the NIS submitted with the appeal into consideration along with their own Appropriate Assessment screening and determined that the proposed development, on its own or in combination with other plans or projects, would not adversely affect the integrity of a European site in view of the site’s conservation objectives.

The Inspector had recommended the omission of one turbine but, after studying the Environmental Impact Statement, additional information, technical reports including that of the Senior Executive Chemist together with submissions received from the applicant, the Board did not consider that there was a specific environmental risk arising from piling of ash as indicated for Turbine 1 given that this is inert and is located outside the engineered landfill area. Consequently, the risk of environmental pollution to the Special Area of Conservation would be negligible.

Permission was granted subject to 14 conditions including a 25 year lifetime; cumulative shadow flicker arising from the proposed development, shall not exceed 30 minutes in any day or 30 hours in any year at any dwelling; fitting turbines with appropriate equipment and software to control shadow flicker at dwellings and a wind farm shadow flicker monitoring programme to be submitted to the planning authority for written agreement.

The draft Revisions to the 2006 Wind Energy Development Guidelines are now out for consultation with submissions being sought by February 21st 2014.
The revisions are quite specific focusing on noise and shadow flicker with the remainder of the guidelines to remain unchanged.
The revised noise and shadow flicker sections of the Wind Energy Development Guidelines being put out for public consultation today proposes;

The setting of a more stringent absolute noise limit (day and night) of 40 decibels (dB) for future wind energy developments. This limit is an outdoor limit, in general the reduction of noise levels between the outside of a dwelling and inside would be approximately 10 decibels.

A mandatory setback of 500 metres between a wind turbine and the nearest dwelling for amenity considerations.

A condition be attached to all future planning permissions for wind farms to ensure that there will be no shadow flicker at any dwelling within 10 rotor diameters of a wind turbine. If shadow flicker does occur, the wind energy developer or operator will be required to take necessary measures, such as turbine shut down for the period necessary, to eliminate the shadow flicker.

The guidelines are intended to finalised next year.

A question came before An Bord Pleanala as to whether the creation of a loading bay with roller shutter to side of an industrial/warehouse premises at Chadwicks, Greencastle Parade, Malahide Road, Coolock, Dublin is or is not development or is or is not exempted development.

Dublin City Council issued a declaration in July 2013 stating that the said matter is development and is not exempted development. This was based on the view that the doorway aperture was quite significant in terms of scale and in proportion relative to the elevation and the overall building.

The referrer argued to the Board that the change is not so radical or significant that it would materially affect the external appearance of the structure or neighbouring structures. However the An Bord Pleanala Inspector agreed with Dublin City Councils view.

An Bord Pleanála sided with the referrer. They agreed Read the rest of this entry »

The Supreme Court have unanimously ruled that An Bord Pleanala decisions become final only when they are put in formal writing in the form of an order and not when they are made at Board meetings, as was contended by An Bord Pleanala.

This important clarification arose from two commercial developments whereby objectors has withdrawn appeals yet An Bord Pleanala continued to issue a decision on the appeal as the withdrawal occurred after the decision was made at the Board meeting.

The decision means the two commercial developments, one in Wicklow and one in Wexford, can now proceed.

The Journal.ie this week ran with two articles based on an article in Irish Planning News concerning mobile advertising:

http://www.thejournal.ie/mobile-trailer-advertisements-planning-permission-bord-pleanala-1206054-Dec2013/

http://www.thejournal.ie/vending-machines-licensing-laws-finger-board-planning-permission-1209770-Dec2013/