Application granted for 25-year use and extension to historic Mountcharles quarry

Donegal County Council has granted planning permission for a sandstone quarry extension in Mountcharles, along with a 25-year planning permission for the use of the quarry.

Drumkeelan Quarry is to be extended in an area totalling 2.141 hectares, including the use and upgrading of existing quarry entrances, related structures and developments, and drainage and settlement ponds. 

Full planning permission was given for a proposed landscaping berm and planting/grass strips, a concrete apron and drainage grid at the entrance, a refuelling pad with a hydrocarbon interceptor, and associated site works.

Retention planning permission for a quarried area comprising 2.801 hectares outside the site’s historic quarry area was also provided.

Drumkeelan Quarry has been in operation since the late 19th century, and was said to have supplied stone for the construction of St Eunan’s Cathedral in Letterkenny. 

The application said that the applicant and operator of Drumkeelan Quarry, Brian Kerrigan, “wishes to regularise the quarry operation and is seeking assurance that the facility can continue to operate and produce stone into the future, and provide continued employment for those working at the facility. 

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“Drumkeelan Quarry strives to operate a facility that is safe, compliant with all associated conditions and regulations associated with the quarry facility, and in co-operation with the Environment and Planning sections of Donegal County Council. 

“The application seeks to permit material to be excavated within the red line boundary, which includes the existing quarry site, with two proposed extensions within the East Quarry and West Quarry areas.”

Regarding the necessity of the quarry’s development, Canavan Associates, writing on behalf of Brian Kerrigan, stated: “Quarries are a necessity of the construction industry and thus of society.

“The proposed development is not like other commercial enterprises that can be located at other potential locations. It is a resource-based development and therefore aggregates can only be worked or extracted where they are present in situ.

“Given that it is projected that there is a further 450,800 tonnes of sandstone available at the site for extraction, the operational quarry will continue to support a local business and employ locals in the rural countryside.”

Donegal County Council granted permission for the application with 20 conditions, including a condition that the applicant pay a contribution of €128,517.23 in respect of public infrastructure and facilities benefiting development in the area of the Planning Authority that is already provided or is intended will be provided by the Authority. 

A further condition was set that within six months of the final grant of the planning permission, the applicant or person entitled to take benefit of the permission shall provide adequate security to the Council for the purposes of landscape and restoration of the quarry, in the sum of €20,000 by a bond of a banking or insurance company acceptable to the council, a cash payment, or such other security as the Council may approve.