Fingal County Council has refused to grant permission to Country Crest to build an anaerobic digestion (AD) plant at its premises in Lusk, despite planning permission for an approved plant having only lapsed in 2023.

Farming and food company Country Crest applied for planning permission to build an AD plant to produce renewable biomethane gas, at its food production facilities in Lusk, Dublin.

The company had previously secured planning permission for an AD plant on the site in 2012, and after securing an extension in 2018, this permission expired in 2023.

Reasons

The council refused permission on three grounds.

It argued that the proposed development would not be directly connected to, nor serve, the local rural community as the majority of the raw materials required by the AD process would be sourced from outside the local rural area.

In its application, Country Crest said the AD plant will be supplied with around 60,000t of feedstock per year, consisting mainly of grass and whole-crop silage, vegetable and food processing byproducts, slurry and manures and poultry litter. Agricultural whole-crop and grass silage will be grown by Country Crest and other growers in the area, it said.

However, the council said the construction of a commercially operated AD plant would contravene the land use zoning of the area.

It also stated that the proposed development would be visually obtrusive and would seriously injure the amenities of the area and that due to the absence of a road safety audit, the local authority could not assess the potential road safety risks associated with a development.

Objections

The project received a number of objections, many of which argued that the site is not zoned for this type of development

David Llewellyn, of Lusca Vineyard, Lusk, was among the objectors. He runs a vineyard and orchard, producing wine, cider and other products on his farm which is close to Country Crest.

In is objection, he cited last year’s court ruling that Country Crest was ordered to pay damages to the apple farm damage of just over €88,200 in relation to harm judged to have been caused by herbicide spray drift in 2011. He expressed his reservations about the company building the plant.

Appeal

In Country Crest’s appeal, Michael and Gabrielle Hoey said that sustainable farming is at the heart of everything they do, and the AD proposal is a further extension of this philosophy.

They cited the national biomethane strategy and the need to develop agri-led and farmer-centric plants, and stated that their company will do its part in achieving the strategy’s targets.

They said the AD project is going to give many local tillage farming families the opportunity to diversity their farms and give them the control to sell produce from their farms which is not dictated by world market prices for commodities.

Local cereal growers would have the opportunity to supply feedstock to the AD plant, to establish a forward contract price with Country Crest in order to ensure the profitability of their family farms, the appeal reads.

This would also allow these farmers the opportunity to use the digestate from the AD plant as an organic fertiliser on their lands, offsetting the cost of chemical fertiliser inputs in the process and bring all the soil benefits which come with the use of digestate in terms soil health, they continued.

In relation to zoning, they said that the company had faced a similar issue in the past, when one of their onion buildings was classified as industrial by Fingal County Council — which is not permitted in rural zoning — but this was subsequently overturned by An Bord Pleanála.

They believe the current AD proposal represents agricultural buildings and utility installations that are permissible under that zoning, and has asked the board to approve the plan.