Residents’ objections put East Cork cheese plant on hold

Plans for a major new cheese production facility by Dairygold in East Cork are being put on hold following objections by residents.

A group of locals living in the village of Mogeely have appealed the decision of Cork County Council to grant planning permission for the proposed multimillion-euro plant.

The project is a partnership between Dairygold and TINE, Norway’s largest dairy co-op, to build a new factory to increase capacity for the production of Jarlsberg cheese, which has been made at Mogeely under a licence agreement since 2013.

The factory was scheduled to open in 2019 but could face delays as a result of the appeal to An Bord Pleanála.

In a submission to the planning appeals authority, a group of seven residents from the Cois Maigh estate in Mogeely complained that their daily lives have been marred for the past decade by “highly offensive odours and extremely loud nose” from the existing Dairygold factory.

“It’s been a constant headache,” said one of the appellants, Mary Hynes.

“We are ordinary families who invested a lot of money in our homes with the plan to bring up our children in this ‘quiet little village’.

“We have had to endure so much inconvenience due to Dairygold already, that when they announced their plans to build a new factory directly across from our family homes that it felt like the final blow,” she said.

The group claim the proposed factory would be situated 40m from their homes at a time when they already cannot sit in their gardens or hang out washing because of the odour and noise from the existing plant, which is located further away.

Ms Hynes said local people had already made formal complaints on numerous occasions to the Environmental Protection Agency which found, during an inspection of the factory last month, that Dairygold had allegedly breached the terms of its licence on grounds of odour.

They also expressed concern about the negative impact the proposed new plant could have on traffic and potential flooding in the area.

Mogeely was chosen as the location for TINE’s new EU base for the manufacture of Norway’s best-known cheese brand for export to Europe as well as the US and Australia.

Jarlsberg is a mild, semi-soft cow’s milk cheese which resembles Swiss emmental cheese with distinctive, open and irregular “eyes”.

Dairygold claims the expansion will enable its East Cork plant to become an international centre of excellence for the production of cheese. The co-op has stated that the proposed development will fully comply with all regulations set down by the council, Irish Water and other licensing authorities.

Objections were also raised to the project by a large number of residents and organisations in the east Cork area, including Cobh and Aghada, at the proposal by Dairygold to build an 11-kilometre pipeline to discharge wastewater from the plant into Cork Harbour but none of the parties appealed the case to An Bord Pleanála.

The board has signalled it will issue its decision by January 5, 2018.