Delays ahead for Killaloe bridge project?

PLANS for the €40 million Shannon Bridge Crossing are heading for choppy waters after a well known environmental campaigner confirmed his intention to seek a judicial review over environmental concerns.

Peter Sweetman said he has instructed Harrington and Co Solicitors, Bantry to obtain leave from the High Court to initiate a judicial review of the An Bord Pleanála decision on March 27 to grant planning permission for the project.

This includes the €12m Shannon Bridge Crossing, €11.9m Killaloe bypass and upgrading works costing €16.6m on the existing regional road linking Ballina and Birdhill, subject to 11 conditions.

If Mr Sweetman’s application for leave to appeal the board’s decision is granted, it will present a major headache for Clare County Council, who will be forced to postpone the next stage of the process to appoint consultants to deal with further detailed design requirements, the tendering of the scheme and all subsequent stages through to the final construction.

Mayor of Clare Councillor Pat Daly said he would be very disappointed if any party proceeded with a judicial review, in view of the benefits of the project.

“This project, which provides a major improvement in infrastructure for Clare and North Tipperary, has already got the go-ahead. Any delay would be regrettable. Killaloe is crying out for a new bridge crossing for years. People in Ballina and Killaloe have put up with traffic delays on the existing bridge for long enough,” he said.

The future of the N6 Galway City Outer Bypass was thrown into jeopardy on April 11 last after the European Court of Justice (ECJ) upheld an appeal lodged by Mr Sweetman to the High Court and Supreme Court, which sent questions to the ECJ seeking clarification on the extent of European law on the issue.

An Bord Pleanála approved planning permission for the 12km road in 2008. Part of the road was planned to cross a designated ‘site of community importance’ at Lough Corrib, which hosts 14 different habitats protected under the EU habitats directive.

The ECJ ruled that national authorities could not “authorise interventions where there is a risk of lasting harm to the ecological characteristics of sites which host priority natural habitat types”, such as those listed in the EU habitats directive.

“That would particularly be so where there is a risk that an intervention of a particular kind will bring about the disappearance or the partial and irreparable destruction of a priority natural habitat type present on the site concerned,” it said.

The court said the construction of the Galway bypass through the Lough Corrib site would destroy about 1.47 hectares of protected limestone pavement – a priority habitat under the EU Habitats Directive.

Mr Sweetman claimed there are similarities between the Galway bypass case and the need to protect the alluvial woodland on the western side of the River Shannon near Killaloe.

He questioned the timing of the board’s decision concerning the Shannon Bridge Crossing less than two weeks before the Galway bypass ruling, when, he claimed, it must have known how the latter was going in light of the preliminary judgement.

“I don’t think there was any joined-up thinking. The board knew the way the Galway bypass case was going because they had the Advocate General’s report – it is a preliminary judgement. It would have been prudent to wait rather than get it wrong.

 

“The alluvial wet woodland is like in my Galway case, where we had a priority habitat. I don’t believe the State can use the lack of designation of a priority habitat for destroying it. I believe the board got this wrong, like the Galway bypass,” he said.

Where a development has a permanent impact on an SAC, he maintains it has to be carried under a certain section and a more stringent process has to be applied.

“If a priority habitat is designated, work has to be done subject to an opinion from the European Commission. Where a priority habitat is not designated, the commission has to be informed to stop what the commission refers to as ‘death by a thousand cuts’,” he said.

“The river crossing should have been completed under a different process. They were wrong in law. That same point was the first fundamental point in the Galway bypass case.

“In my opinion, no authority in Ireland has completed an appropriate assessment of a development under what is now considered as the law,” he said.

He claimed the Government has to properly designate all priority habitats in the country and if it fails to do so in any case, it couldn’t use the non-compliance of the law to allow the destruction of any habitat. He also believes the status of the undesignated priority habitat should be referred to the European Court for designation as a priority habitat.

During the oral hearing into the Shannon River Crossing project last October, David Browne, BL, who appeared for the objectors, submitted there was reasonable scientific doubt that an Annex I priority natural habitat would be obliterated if the scheme proceeds.

While the site has not been notified to the European Commission on the draft national list, he said the anomaly should be assessed and, if found to satisfy the characteristics of a priority habitat, should be adopted accordingly.

Dermot Flanagan, BL, who appeared for the council, stated the wet alluvial woodland is outside the SAC and that the Habitats Directive doesn’t apply to it. Notwithstanding this, a Natural Impact Statement was produced.

Mr Flanagan argued the 2010 Planning and Development Act allows the board to give consent where it has made modifications or attached conditions if it considers that the integrity of a European site is not adversely affected, if it is carried out in accordance with the consent and the modifications of conditions attached.