Planning review for Belfast EfW project

The review follows the rejection of plans for the plant which have been submitted by Veridis Energy, a consortium led by Irish Recycling Services, which is proposing to build the facility at an estimated cost of 40 million from private funding.

MrAttwood has confirmed serious procedural errors in two planning applications, one of which is the EfW proposal. As a consequence, the Department of Environment in Northern Ireland has withdrawn the two Notices of Opinion to Refuse the applications which were under the Article 31 process.

Information

The Department said: In relation to the Energy from Waste power plant at Ballyutoag Road receipt of further environmental information was not advertised as required under Regulation 12-14 of the EIA Regulations and consultation was not carried out in accordance with the requirements of the Regulations. The Planning Appeals Commission also had queried if the details of the representations received were complete – these are currently being checked.

Mr Attwood said: I recently advised the Environment Committee of a failure in the planning system around the North South Interconnector planning application. At that time, I called for a review of all Article 31 and some other planning applications. Defects have now been identified in these two others cases.

This is unacceptable and means that Departmental notices of opinion must be withdrawn and the applications reprocessed. The identification of these cases validates the need for the review of Article 31 applications. Nevertheless it is not good enough for this to happen and I have told planning officials bluntly of my views and what now needs to happen.

Edward Hanna, director of Veridis, told letsrecycle.com that the situation was quite peculiar. He said: When back in July 2010 DoE issued a notice of opinion to refuse the project, they felt a number of procedures had not happened, yet they had been submitted, including an ecology opinion.

Best available technology

Mr Hanna said the situation going forward remained somewhat unclear. However, were were looking to appeal the judgement on grounds that best available technology considerations and the environmental benefits hadnt been followed by the department. We hope that the project will be looked at fairly, and obviously with a favourable decision as well from our point of view, as we believe we have properly completed our part of the process.