Residents and landowners seek to appeal landfill decision

RESIDENTS and land owners opposed to plans for a landfill are sifting through legal documents desperately trying to find grounds for appeal.

They say they will not make a High Court challenge to the development, unless they find sound legal grounds on which to try such a case. It would be far too costly and they do not have the funds.

Earlier this month, South Tipperary County Council was granted planning for a landfill on 10 acres of a 40-acre site at Grangemockler. It marked the end of a seven-year local battle against the development.

Locals and those involved in an organic farm run by the Camphill care organisation for adults with learning difficulties had always been expected to challenge the decision.

They have now joined forces and are examining the judgment and papers from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

The EPA granted permission for the landfill licence last month, subject to 12 conditions for the site at Grangemockler. Chief among them is that the local authority maintain a 70 metre buffer zone inside the perimeter of the site.

“We met with the EPA last Tuesday,” Camphill community founder, Joseph Teppan, said. “We have a huge amount of material concerning the decision.

We’re sifting through this at the moment and it’s a very slow, long, drawn-out procedure.

“We raised a number of questions about this site in our various submissions but all the contentious issues suddenly seem to have disappeared. We could get lawyers to do this ground-work but it would cost a fortune.

“We are trying to pin-point a specific, non-compliant issue now within the legal framework on which we can get a lawyer to build our case. We have until the end of August to make our submission and hope we will find something by then,” he said.

Senior executive officer with South Tipperary County Council, Jim Harney, said the landfill was urgently needed.

“The existing landfill, the Donohill site, is practically exhausted and we have to do something to provide for the waste of the 26,000 households and 80,000 people of south Tipperary,” he said.