Quarry questions

Mayoman’s quarries at issue

Áine Ryan

QUARRIES owned by millionaire Mayo Person of the Year, Frank Harrington (pictured) may be deemed ‘unauthorised’ and closed by Mayo County Council, if all other avenues fail to resolve complex planning loopholes.
The Mayo News has learned there is now a question mark over the legal status of these quarries because of the failure of An Bord Pleanála (ABP) to make a decision about their eligibility under provisions made by the Planning and Development Act 2000. This Act aimed to regularise the status of quarries – opened before 1964 – by facilitating a registration process. Once registered a local authority is allowed, under Section 261 of the Act, to impose operational conditions.
Mayo County Council will now be the first local authority in the country forced to address issues arising from the Act.
The Council is now ‘considering the implications’ of the recent ABP ‘comments’ regarding its imposition of stringent conditions on Mr Harrington’s quarries at The Stripe (Charlestown), Knockbrack-Shammer and Licosker (Kilkelly) and Gortnafolla (Castlebar). 
ABP suggested that there was no basis in the new quarrying legislation for the imposition of the conditions on such ‘unauthorised’ quarries and recommended that Harrington, instead, seek planning permission for the quarries. However, it did not make a ruling on the matter.
According to the Council, ABP has now ‘opened a hornet’s nest’, since these quarries may be exempt from such a requirement.
“There was a procedure brought in under the Planning Act 2000 for the registration of quarries that were opened before 1964. If you applied, then we laid down conditions that would protect the interests of those living in the area,” said a Council spokesman.
Ironically, Frank Harrington applied to the Council under the new Act, but after the application was processed and the Council notified Harrington of the contingent conditions, he appealed the decision to ABP. 
“He didn’t like some of the conditions and appealed them to An Bord Pleanála. The board then issued a statement that these quarries were not applicable to the 1964 process. It was a bit of a surprise to us that they took this view,” continued the spokesman.
“We thought the board [ABP] would uphold the registration and maybe vary the conditions. We certainly didn’t think they’d put a question mark over it,” he added.
Crucially, the problem for the Council now is that ABP has recommended that Harrington apply for planning permission rather than registration under the 2000 Act. However, technically Harrington may be exempt from this process since they have operated for decades without such a permission. 
Meanwhile, a spokesman for Frank Harrington Ltd told The Mayo News that the company has now withdrawn a number of its appeals to ABP and has accepted the conditions imposed by Mayo County Council.
Ironically, this action provides little comfort for the Council since ABP has placed a big question mark over the validity of the registration of the same quarries.    
Reportedly, Frank Harrington Ltd (FHL) sold €40 million worth of concrete and tarmac in 2006, a 21 per cent increase on the previous year. He and his wife, Patricia, each own 50 per cent of FHL, which had accumulated profits of €13 million in 2006.

Background
ACCORDING to an An Taisce report in 2007, Frank Harrington’s 180-acre quarry at The Stripe, to the west of Knock Airport, is the ‘largest single bogus 1964 quarry’ in the country.
“There was an area of small-scale quarrying extraction at the east of the site, near the public road, pre-1964, but most of the land unit which comprises the current quarry area was acquired during the 1970s, ‘80s and ‘90s as has been established through Land Registry research, including a huge area of extraction used for the construction of Knock Airport,” the report on quarries states.
“Such was the enthusiasm for the construction of this major State-funded project that nobody had any concern at the legal and planning permission status of the site,” it also notes.
This report, by Ian Lumley, highlights ‘the ineffective action’ of Mayo County Council in enforcing planning legislation, which he argues ‘is being subverted by systemic condition compliance breach and tolerance of unauthorised development’.

Quarry legislation
QUARRY developments come under the auspices of the various Planning Acts. All quarries in existence at the date of the Local Government (Planning and Development) Act 1963 were deemed to have legal status. New quarries, and extensions of existing pre-1964 quarries, require planning permission. Nonetheless, massive and widespread developments have been allowed over the following decades, due to rather vacuous legislation. The new Act in 2000 was devised to provide a proper national framework for the regulation of the industry.