Mr Justice McKechnie in the high court on Friday 4th June 2010 quashed the decision by Sligo Co Co to grant planning permission to Sligo Airport to extend the runway onto Dorrins Strand.

In August 2009 Sligo Co Co granted Sligo Airport planning permission to build an extended runway onto Dorrins Strand in Sligo Bay. This permission was granted despite wide scale objections from local residents and other national bodies such as Dept of Environment, Heritage & Local Government, An Taisce and Birdwatch Ireland. It was opposed by the residents of Coney Island who were concerned at damage that would be done to the access road to the island. Finally it was opposed by fish farming interests because of the very real threat to critical operations in the immediate vicinity of the proposed extension.

Dorrins Strand is a fabulous amenity for local people and visitors; it is an area of outstanding natural beauty and it is protected under EU and national law as an important wildlife habitat. It is an SAC, an SPA and it is a listed Ramsar Site

Two local residents applied to the high court for a judicial review of Sligo Co Co’s decision to grant permission. After months of delay, multiple adjournments and a number of hearings, Justice McKechnie quashed the County Council decision in full in his decision on Friday.

The scheduled Bord Pleanala appeal which had been delayed under high court injunction, pending the outcome of the high court process will not now take place.

It leaves Sligo Airport back to square one with their development plans – three and half years after they first applied for planning permission to build a runway on Dorrins Strand.

Dorrins & Cummeen Strand Conservation Group (DCCG) welcome the decision of the court and we applaud and congratulate the two local people that took the high court action. It was a strong and courageous decision by them.

This result is a triumph for local activists who stood up for the protection of their local environment and the preservation of the rights of local people. This proposed development is totally unnecessary, is very damaging to the environment and hugely wasteful of much needed public funds.

We are one of six appeals to An Bord Pleanala.  Other persons / bodies who have submitted an appeal against Sligo Airport’s plan include:

1) Department of Environment,  Heritage and Local Government, 2) Birdwatch Ireland, 3) An Taisce , 4) Coney Island Shellfish Ltd and 5) Mr Nicholas Prins.

A number of “observations” have also been submitted to Bord Pleanala

We have asked for an oral hearing.  An oral hearing can be granted at the discretion of An Bord Pleanala.

Your help at any of the fundraising efforts would be greatly appreciated.  Funds are important in this case as we want to employ the best experts we can to present our case.

The new landing system together with other safety improvements were installed at a cost of €3.6 million.

“Scheduled flights from Ireland West (Knock Airport) now serve Dublin and Cork, as well as nine destinations in the UK, including London Gatwick, Stansted and Luton. A scheduled service also serves Alicante in Spain.

Charter services on the airport website include 10 locations from Portugal to eastern Europe.”

Clearly Knock has firmly established itself as The Regional Airport for the West, Northwest as well as part of the midlands and seems to be doing an excellent job.

Do we still think there is a need for two regional airports side by side? Is there a need for Sligo Airport to destroy Dorrins Strand? Is there a need to spend €10.0 million of taxpayer’s money on an airport that by virtue of its location will never become a sustainable piece of infrastructure?

We have to take care of our environment. It is long past time that the people in charge of our public finances took stock of the infrastructural needs in this region and began to target public spending more effectively and stop the profligate waste we saw during the Celtic Tiger years.

Contrary to some of the allegations made against our organisation, Dorrins and Cummeen Strand Group are very much in favour of economic development and we recognise the need for good infrastructure and its role in society. But it has to be sustainable development and infrastructure. Unlike some of the madness we have seen by unscrupulous developers in the last few years

Link to today’s Irish Times Article

• Preliminary Submission (16th August 2008)
  
• Main Submission (10th September 2008)
  

If you are concerned about this issue, then you must make your concerns known to Sligo County Council by making a submission to the council that will arrive in planning offices before this date.

To assist you in this process, we have prepared 2 templates for download.

• A listing of possible reasons people might find to object to the Airport Runway extension & associated works (Download Issues Template)
• A general template letter of what a letter of objection might look like (Download Letter Template)

Please feel free to use this as a guide for formulating your own objection and add any additional comments or objections that are not listed in the attached documents. Your submission is not valid unless it is accompanied by €20 fee. Please feel free to forward these details to friends who may be interested in this issue (but were unaware that a new application was in play) and who may wish to object.

Again – you must be aware that if the submission is not received in council offices before 5.00pm on 11th September then it is invalid.

If you have questions or require any further information please send an email to dorrins@hotmail.com – and we will assist you with your submission.

Full details – including submissions received – are best viewed using Internet Explorer. If you need help installing the plugin needed to view the documents, Strandhill Online have a good guide on viewing planning applications from Sligo County Council.

Briefing Statement to Local Councillors (Oct. 4th 2007)

Introduction:
Sligo needs to develop its infrastructure in line with its designation as a Gateway City and its aspiration to achieve the objectives set out under that designation. Fundamental to the achievement of this objective is a coordinated and integrated approach to communication, transport, energy and industrial development. This presents a very exacting challenge to our leaders in public life. The current proposal to extend the runway at the airport in Strandhill falls short of this challenge on a number of fronts, but in particular in that it fails to provide the infrastructure that would allow the required level of opportunity to support future industrial expansion.

Issues:

1. The proposal should be rejected by the planning authorities. The response of the consultants to the request for further information was to submit, not just additional information, but a substantially changed plan. Under planning laws, this should form the substance of a new planning application.
2. The proposal provides only a stop-gap solution. Whereas the proposed extension would allow for the safe operation of the aircraft type currently in use, what if the regulations change, or the operator changes the aircraft type?
3. The proposal does not allow for tourism expansion. If a tour operator wishes to bring tour groups to Sligo, this will only be economical if aircraft of 150 seat capacity and over can be used. This would require a runway of 2000 metres or more. Further destruction of this sensitive landscape would be required, to achieve this.
4. The proposal represents unsustainable development environmentally, ecologically, commercially and economically. It is unsustainable to suggest sacrificing a precious beach of international ecological significance in favour of 259 metres of tarmac. It is unsustainable to suggest importing 286,000 cubic metres of quarried material as a foundation for 259 metres of tarmac. It is unsustainable to propose a plan which will eliminate a thriving export business in organic farmed clams, which provides valuable jobs and export revenue. It is unsustainable to propose spending such enormous quantities of public funds to such little effect, in an attempt to enable the airport to become commercially viable.
5. The proposal is out of line with related infrastructural developments. The Inner Relief Road has provided a corridor, along which significant industrial development has already taken place, in line with development plans. The airport in Strandhill was never planned; it happened by accident, growing out of an aero club landing strip. Access to other transport infrastructure is a vitally important component in the development of air transport. Efforts to create a vibrant airport, capable of providing the scale of service required by a Gateway City, will always be hindered by the limitations outlined above.

In your position as an elected representative, we would request you to show vision and leadership and to represent our views to that effect in the council chamber.

All are welcome.

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