An Bord Pleanála disallows mast application saying it doesn't adhere to ministerial guidelines

Separately, two new judicial reviews regarding ABP mast decisions which were similarly approved despite allegedly not taking the ‘last resort’ principle into account, were lodged at the High Court on Monday. File picture

An Bord Pleanála has disallowed an application for a telecommunications mast in a Co. Longford town due to its non-adherence to ministerial guidelines.

The application for a 20m high telecommunications lattice in Granard was first lodged by Eir, trading as Eircom, last January after permission had been initially refused by the local authority in December 2021.

The ABP inspector’s report for the new mast said, however, that the applicant’s assertion that “justification for another mast at this location is reasonable” could not be accepted.

“It would appear the operators are haphazardly applying for planning permission for new communications structures without due consultation between the providers to share and co-locate in accordance with the Ministerial Guidelines,” the inspector, Caryn Coogan, said in her report.

“The Telecommunications Guidelines state that only as a last resort should masts be located within or in the immediate surrounds of smaller towns or villages, or in a residential area or beside schools,” she added.

In refusing the application temporary board member Stephen Brophy, who was appointed for a one-year term last January by Housing Minister Darragh O’Brien, agreed with Ms Coogan, stating that Eir had “failed to demonstrate sufficiently that the subject site is a last and only location in Granard which could serve to enhance existing coverage in the area”.

Judicial reviews

Last May, the Irish Examiner revealed that former Bord Pleanála deputy chair Paul Hyde had voted to override his own inspectors in the vast majority of applications for telecommunications masts over the previous two years. Several of these are now the subject of judicial reviews.

In one such case in Glenealy in Co. Wicklow dating from February 2022, itself the subject of an ongoing appeal in the High Court, Mr Hyde had overruled his own inspector who had specifically noted that the applicant – Eir – had failed to demonstrate that the site of the application was a last resort.

Separately, two new judicial reviews regarding ABP mast decisions which were similarly approved despite allegedly not taking the ‘last resort’ principle into account, were lodged at the High Court on Monday – one in Scariff, Co. Clare, which was granted leave to take the review, and one in Gortnahoe, Co. Tipperary, which was slated to return to the court next week.