Embarrassing five-acre error on site map derails College Proteins project

The oral hearing into Nobber company College Proteins" proposal for a meat and bonemeal (MBM) incinerator was adjourned last Friday after opponents claimed the inclusion of five acres within the site, owned by a local farmer, invalidated the entire application. The Bord Pleanala inspector, Pauline Fitzpatrick, told the hearing in Navan"s Newgrange Hotel she was adjourning the hearing for three weeks to consider the evidence and present it to the board for its determination. David Horgan, whose farm is located at the Kingscourt Road, Nobber, had told the hearing on Thursday evening that the five acres within the red line of the College Proteins application was his property. Mr Horgan was not approached to sell the land nor was permission sought from him by College Proteins to develop the land. The firm issued a statement acknowledging its mistake and apologising both to Mr Horgan and the hearing. Its legal counsel, Ms Suzanne Murray, told Friday"s hearing that the lands had been intended for storing overburden while building was underway on the main site. However, she denied that the inspector, therefore, had the right to rule on the validity of the application. She contended that there was scope for the firm to submit further information grounded on revised submissions, since it owned other nearby lands where the building material could be stored. Mr Oisín Collins, counsel for North East Against Incineration (NEAI), strongly challenged this by claiming the board was not entitled to accept a revised Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for a substantially different site. He said he had almost completed his case while College Proteins had finished its evidence. He said that it was not going to be a case of 'shifting the goalposts' to allow a radically revised proposal, given the very significant expense his side had been put to. College Proteins, he said, had 'hit a very significant rock, not just one but a multitude of problems'. The groundwater findings it submitted been shown to be 'manifestly wrong' while its entire EIS was 'riddled with factual inaccuracies', he claimed. There was scope for a planning authority to seek clarification and this did not require a wholesale revision of the EIS, responded Ms Murray. There was 'more than adequate' lands available within the red line of the proposal to take the quantum of landfill indicated for the five acres. However, each of these points were challenged by the NEAI team. Ms Fitzpatrick adjourned the hearing for an hour to take instructions. Mr Collins then informed Ms Fitzpatrick that the revised proposal from the firm was unacceptable to his side, given the 'clearly profound' differences shown in the two weeks of the oral hearing. 'The egg cannot be unscrambled by College Proteins,' he said. Mr Collins felt its revision was put together so quickly that his clients felt 'railroaded but it was the developer who had become derailed'. He strongly opposed the firm"s proposal to seek its costs from the board. Ms Fitzpatrick said she had raised by both parties before making her ruling. There was an obligation for a developer to have legal title to the land concerned. It would be open to Bord Pleanála to allow reasonable costs to parties, she said. She asked Mr Collins why no reference to Mr Horgan"s ownership of the land had been made in the written submission or notified at the preliminary hearing. Mr Collins took instructions from Mr Horgan, who sat close to the NEAI team, and said the farmer did not notice that one of his fields had been included in the site. It was indicated there might be an ownership issue. Counsel said he then sought clarification of this and was still uncertain until a registry search had clarified Mr Horgan"s ownership. In light of news that part of the proposed development is on land owned by a local farmer, Christy Reilly, chairman of North-East Against Incineration group, said: 'We are very happy with the outcome today. We feel the ball is in the hands of An Bord Pleanala. 'From our presentation and expert witnesses, we have shown that this application is completely flawed and we are confident that An Bord Pleanala will refuse permission for the development.' Mr Reilly added that 'the error that has been highlighted is not just a wrong line on a map'. 'The planning application, in the area concerned, is for a landfill site for toxic materials and it has shown the complete incompetence of the applicant in their proposal,' he said. Cllr Eugene Cassidy remarked: 'If College Proteins cannot get their site map right, how can we possibly trust the company to develop an incinerator of which they know very little about in terms of safety?' Local Fine Gael TD Shane McEntee said he had no doubt that the application will be deemed invalid because any application to a local aithority that does not provide the right site maps should be deemed invalid. 'It is also inevitable that people from Nobber and surrounding areas will have to be reimbursed with all their costs to date,' he added. Cllr Michael Gallagher of Sinn Fein said the error showed up major flaws in the Strategic Infrastructure Bill in that, if this application came through the normal planning process, it would have been deemed invalid based on the error in the plans. He added: 'It shows that the Strategic Infrastructure Bill strongly favours the developer. 'It takes the power away from the local community, local planning authorities and elected councillors,' he said. Cllr Gallagher described the Strategic Infrastructure Bill, which was introduced in 2006, as a very undemocratic piece of legislation and called on members of the Oireachtas to 'rescind this flawed legislation'.