Locals pledge to fight plan for Kilmessan quarry"s 20-year extension

Residents of the Kilmessan and Dunsany areas are vowing to oppose Kilsaran Concrete"s new planning application seeking both an extension to the present quarrying operation for a further 20 years, and the construction of a block-making facility at the Swainstown quarry. Last year, An Bord Pleanala upheld an appeal against Meath County Council"s decision to grant planning permission for the block-making facility at Swainstown, saying that the go-ahead compromised the existing planning permission for the quarrying operation, due to expire in 2011. The company is now applying for permission to extend the quarrying for 20 years, with a further two years" restoration. Residents are due to hold a meeting on Monday night next, 6th October, in Dunsany Parish Hall, to organise objections to the application, to be lodged by 17th October. Kilsaran is seeking to continue the existing quarrying operation, including the extraction by a further two benches within the previously approved extraction footprint area for a new permission of 22 years on a 46-hectare site. Permission is also being sought for a new concrete batching facility on the existing quarry floor which will include 10 overground storage bins. Kilsaran plans the development in three stages. Phase one is to quarry the existing lower bench to produce an 18 metre high face to quarry 7.3 million tonnes of rock over a 10-year period. Phase two is to commence when all the rock from phase one is extracted. The floor of phase one will experience a level of blasting for a clean quarry face to be shaped with extraction not going below a finish depth of 37 metres. This would see 5.5 million tonnes extracted over a seven-year period. Phase three is the relocation of the existing relocation plant to the lower quarry floor, and this bench is to be quarried to a maximum depth of nine metres to a finish level of 64 metres. Phase three would see 2.3 million tonnes of rock extracted over three years. The proposed development of Tullykane Quarry will provide for the long-term security for the existing business of Kilsaran concrete in Meath and the general Dublin area, Kilsaran says in the application. It is seeking two years to restore the site to an ecological habitat, but adds that 'the developer recognises that should additional reserves of limestone be identified outside of this site, then a separate and new planning application will be required for such future development'. There were 120 objections to the previous application to the plan to construct the concrete batching plant and concrete block production facility with two batching houses, 10 aggregate storage bins, three cement silos, conveyors, two water storage tanks, a storage building, three ground storage aggregate bays, a concrete recycler and wash water recycling lagoons, block yard, prefab office, truck parking are and ESB substation. In a split decision, the planning appeals board allowed for retention of the ESB substation. Kilsaran had also appealed the decision on one of the county council"s conditions, the financial contribution of €50,000. The company had intended moving its production facility from Clonmagadden in Navan to Swainstown Quarry at Tullykane. Among those who objected to the proposal was the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, which said that the proposed development is in close proximity to a number of national monuments that compromise important components of the archaeological heritage in the vicinity of the Hill of Tara. The increased amount of trucks on the already heavily burdened roads, and the quarrying of lands so close to the side of the Hill of Tara, and Kilmessan, designated a heritage village, as well as Dunsany, designated a special area of visual amenity in the county development plan, are among the issues concerning objectors, as well as the effects on the water tables in the areas.