Recycling firm seeks to challenge refusal for waste transfer station

A recycling firm is seeking to challenge An Bord Pleanála’s refusal to allow it to build a waste transfer station on grounds of an alleged failure by its then deputy chairperson Paul Hyde to recuse him from having any role in the decision.

County Clean Recycling Unlimited Company was in 2021 refused permission by the board to develop a building containing a waste transfer and recycling facility at Courtstown Industrial Estate, Little Island in Co Cork.

Cork County Council had previously granted the applicant permission to build the facility.

That decision was appealed to the board.

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However, despite a recommendation by the board’s inspector to grant permission, the board refused to give the project the green light.

In its High Court action, the applicant claims the board acted contrary to fair procedures and was guilty of bias in circumstances where Mr Hyde, when authorising the authentication of the board’s decision, failed to declare a conflict of interest.

It is claimed that Mr Hyde spent a lot of time in his youth in the area and the proposed development is approximately one mile away from Mr Hyde’s family.

In addition many people from the locality objected to the proposed development, including golf clubs and a tidy towns committee.

The applicant claims that given Mr Hyde’s connection with the area it is highly likely that some or many of the objectors were known to Mr Hyde and his family.

The applicant adds that this connection, combined with Mr Hyde’s recent conviction for planning breaches, gives rise to a reasonable apprehension of bias in the board’s decision-making process.

He should have recused himself from having any role in the decision, but he failed to do so, it is claimed.

Other grounds of the action include that the board took irrelevant considerations into account when it arrived at its decision.

In its judicial review action against the board, the applicant, represented by Oisin Collins SC, seeks various orders and declarations from the court including an order quashing the permission refusal.

It also seeks orders allowing it to formally extend the time allowed to bring its action, as well as orders requiring the board to furnish it with all relevant information and documentation.

The matter came before Ms Justice Niamh Hyland, who on an ex parte basis granted the applicant permission to bring the challenge.

The matter will return before the court in December.

Mr Hyde, 50, pleaded guilty in June to two offences contrary to section 147 of the Planning and Development Act 2000. He received a two-month jail sentence over breaches of planning laws.

The District Court heard that one small parcel of land in Cork City — known as a “ransom strip” — had not been declared by Mr Hyde in 2015 and that in 2018 he failed to declare properties he still owned but for which receivers had been appointed.

Mr Hyde, of Castlefields, Baltimore, Co Cork, resigned his position with the planning board last year, having first been appointed as a member in September 2014.

His appeal against the two-month sentence will be heard in November.