News from down the country

national | environment | news report Saturday September 20, 2008 00:47 by Contaminated Crow

A quiet week -airport objections and an oral hearing

By last Tuesday Sligo County Council had received 221 objections to an application for planning permission for an extension to Sligo Airport’s runway at Strandhill, three times the number of objections that had been lodged against the airport’s previous application in March 2007. Objectors, who include shellfish farmers, local residents, Birdwatch Ireland, Keep Ireland Open and the Dorrins and Cummeen Strand Conservation Group (DCCG), claim the planned expansion will destroy Dorrins Strand. DCCG chairperson, John McDermott, welcomed public support for DCCG’s ‘highlighting the inherent dangers in a development of this scale on a public beach’. (Source: Sligo Weekender 16/9/08, p. 5)

Speaking at an oral hearing into an application by Bord na Mona to expand its Drehid landfill, a procedure that bypasses the local authority planning system and goes straight to An Bord Pleanala, Ms. Breda Logan, a member of the company’s Community Liaison Committee, said the local area was seriously infested by flies, a complaint supported by a petition signed by 256 of her neighbours. Bord na Mona admitted the problem existed and has engaged a pesticide consultant to deal with it. Other criticisms aired at the hearing include doubts at Bord na Mona’s ability to manage odour abatement at the increased-capacity landfill, while extraction of gravel is alleged to have lowered the water table. (Source: Leinster Leader 18/9/08, p. 2)

The Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources has yet to receive official notification of a legal challenge by Mayo Gold to the Minister of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources’s decision to refuse prospecting licences to the company, despite national newspaper reports that the company is seriously contemplating a High Court challenge. (Source: Mayo News 16/9/08, p. 4)