Council scraps rezoning near weather station

A WARNING from consultants that the building of houses, retail warehousing and leisure facilities could have a “fatal effect” on a weather station outside Caherciveen has been heeded by Kerry County Council.

It has dropped a proposal to rezone land surrounding Valentia Observatory after representations from various Government departments and services in Japan, Norway, Germany, France, Britain and Spain that rely on scientific information from the observatory.

Believed to be one of the oldest in the world, the observatory has been providing essential data since 1865 and is a critical part of the Met Éireann service.

As well as carrying out weather measurements, it has a wide range of scientific activities including ozone, earthquake and environmental monitoring and checking of solar radiation.

The Office of Public Works and the Department of the Environment engaged consulting engineers Malachy Walsh and Partners following the preparation of an area plan for Caherciveen by the county council.

In the face of pressure for development around the town, the plan proposed the rezoning land around the observatory for residential, warehousing, amenity and tourism/leisure purposes.

But the consultants said this would have a serious impact on the observatory’s work and the services it provided.

Ken Fitzgerald, of the consultant’s environment and planning unit, said: “Should development occur within an absolute buffer zone of 250 metres of the site boundary, particularly on the west and south boundaries, monitoring equipment effectiveness will be rendered useless, to the extent that the programmes of the observatory will not be able to function.”

He said open space was necessary for the operation of scientific programmes.

Michel Menvielle, director of the International Service of Geomagnetic Indices in France, said he was greatly concerned to hear the observatory was threatened with environmental noise, which would cause degradation of data, or possible closure of the facility.

“It would be impossible to replace the more than 100 years of high quality data from Valentia through other observation methods,” he told the council in a letter.

The observatory also provides vital information to Ordnance Survey Ireland, the Irish Aviation Authority and the Air Corps.