An English company's High Court challenge to the South Eastern motorway scheme will resume at the High Court next month.
Mr Justice Geoghegan yesterday granted an application by Mr James Macken SC, for Jackson Way Properties, to widen his case to incorporate a challenge to the constitutionality of Section 49.3 of the Roads Act, which outlines the circumstances whereby the Minister for the Environment and Local Government may approve a motorway.
The application to extend the grounds was strongly resisted by counsel for Dun Laoghaire/Rathdown County Council and the Attorney General in the hearing last week. The judge reserved decision on the point.
In allowing the amendment yesterday, the judge said he did not think any prejudice in the legal sense could be caused to the council or AG. He adjourned the case to June 8th.
In the proceedings, Jackson, St Paul's Square, Birmingham, is seeking an order quashing the decision of the Minister for the Environment and Local Government to approve the motorway scheme, with modifications.
The company claims the proposed motorway will bisect its lands at Carrickmines, Co Dublin - some of which is zoned industrial - and that there will be inadequate access to its property.
Mr Macken said the council was taking some of his clients' lands, severing them with a motorway and failing to provide proper access. Access to the lands could have been provided by an overpass.