‘Within-the-rules’ revised proposal for incinerator in Cork ‘a blow’ for opponents

A finding by senior planning officials at Cork County Council (CCC) that a revised proposal for an incinerator in Ringaskiddy is within the rules has been described as “a blow, but not a show-stopper” by one of its staunchest opponents.

Environmental engineer and Independent county councillor, Marcia D’Alton, said the planner’s decision was largely inevitable given Junior Environment Minister Paudie Coffey had issued a directive last year instructing the council to delete the ban on contract waste incineration from its County Development Plan. This, he argued, was because any prohibition of energy recovery through incineration in an industrial area designated as a Strategic Employment Area, which Ringaskiddy is, would be “out of step” with national waste policy.

In light of this directive, which Ms D’Alton described as “anti-democratic” , she said it was “no great surprise” that the council’s senior planner, Paul Murphy, had deemed the revised incinerator proposal acceptable. The proposal, by Belgian company Indaver, is for a 240,000 tonnes per annum waste-to-energy plant, including both hazardous and municipal waste. The project has been on the go since 2001 when Indaver first lodged a planning application which was granted but subsequently expired while legal wrangling was under way.

A second application in 2008 was refused in 2011 but a third application was subsequently lodged with the County Council and that will be the subject of an An Bórd Pleanála oral hearing due to get under way in Carrigaline Court Hotel on Tuesday next.

Ms D’Alton said the senior planner’s observations focused on the waste aspect of the County Development Plan and had not taken into account the tourism role envisaged in the plan.

In his report, signed off by council chief Tim Lucey, Mr Murphy said the incinerator was “acceptable from a policy perspective” in terms of appropriate use of land in industrial areas, as redefined by Mr Coffey. He said it was visually acceptable having regard to its setting “relative to the existing industrial installations in the vicinity”.