The Brooks timber and building supplies group has claimed before the High Court that a new link road from the M50 to one of their outlets in Dublin will create a junction which will be unable to accommodate articulated trucks.
The group had sought an injunction last week preventing Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council from starting work on the new link road from Junction 14 of the M50 and Blackthorn Road in the Sandyford Industrial Estate.
The work will include a new junction at the intersection between what will become the cul de sac of Fern Road East and the new link road. Brooks has a building supplies depot at the end of Fern Road which routinely has 40-foot trucks entering and leaving it.
After the application for an injunction was made, the council undertook to the court not to start the work, scheduled to begin next month, until the matter returned to court this week.
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On Wednesday, Oisín Collins SC, for the Brooks group, asked that a hearing date be set for the injunction. Carol O’Farrell, for the council, sought time to put in affidavits and said the undertaking not to work on the road would continue.
Mr Justice Oisín Quinn adjourned the matter for two weeks to give time for exchange of papers between the parties and said it may be that it could be dealt with on the next day.
The injunction application was brought by Brooks holding company Donaghbrook, formerly Premier Forest ROI Ltd, and Brooks Timber and Building Supplies Ltd.
In an affidavit seeking the injunction, Patrick Moore, a director of Donaghbrook and Brooks, said Premier Forest changed its name to Donaghbrook in February 2021 and subsequently, in August 2021, both companies were bought by Murdoch Building Merchants Ltd.
Mr Moore said the council had issued a compulsory purchase order (CPO) in order to carry out the work and in 2016 it committed to the company that the design of the junction would be such that it could accommodate 40-foot truck/trailers.
He said as a result the company withdrew its objection to the CPO.
The new management of the group and the council met last December when, Mr Moore said, there was a commitment from the council that the access point to the Brooks premises would never be less than 4.5 metres in width.
However, he said, when the council provided drawings of what was to be done and when examined by their expert, it was found the new junction would not accommodate the 40-foot lorries, he said.
The group’s solicitors wrote to the council expressing their concerns and asking for a commitment that no work would be started until a layout had been agreed between the parties.
Mr Moore said no response was received from the council and they were left with no option but to seek the injunction.
He added that the group’s commercial interests would be “significantly impaired” if the junction was constructed in the manner proposed by the council.
