Residents challenge approval for wind turbines

A residents’ group has brought a legal challenge aimed at overturning Bord Pleanála’s grant of planning permission for a development of several wind turbines near their homes in Co Cork.

The High Court case arises from a decision to permit construction of six electricity-generating wind turbines and ancillary building and associated road works at the townlands of Derragh, Rathgaskig and Lack Beg in Ballingeary, Co Cork. The turbines may be a maximum height of 100m with rotor diameter of 100m and a total tip height of 150m.

The residents claim the board’s decision is flawed, unreasonable and irrational, and that it failed to properly assess the impact on their homes of noise generated from the turbines. The 12 residents and their families live and work between 500m and 2km from the proposed development.