Appeal as planning refused for agriculture biogas renewable energy in Newtown

An Bord Pleanála will rule on the proposed development of an agriculture biogas renewable energy facility in Newtowncunningham.

Last month, Northwest Energy Park Ltd were refused planning permission by Donegal County Council for the proposed development at Maylin, Newtowncunningham.

The company has now lodged an appeal to An Bord Pleanála and the planning authority anticipate that a decision will be made by mid-December on the case.

Northwest Energy Park Ltd had sought permission for the construction and continuous operation of the facility.

MacGill Summer School honours founding member, Joe Mulholland

In 1981, Joe Mulholland was instrumental in founding the MacGill Summer School and the committee honoured the Twin Towns native at the Highlands Hotel on Thursday night

The proposed development was to include three primary digester tanks, two post-digester tanks with a pump room and a pasteurisation unit with auxiliary tanks.

The proposed development was also to consists of an emergency flare with base and security fencing, three agricultural solid feeders, two underground pre-reception tanks, two covered agricultural digestate storage tanks, a gas combined heat and power unit.

A site office and control building was also included in the plan together with staff car parking and a wastewater treatment system.

A biogas upgrading treatment and compression system is also planned while the developer included in the planning documents a nutrient recovery system with ancillary tanks and equipment, four ammonium sulphate solution storage tanks and a digestate drying and palletising facility.

A weigh bridge and a pellet storage facility were provided for with the development as proposed also consisting of site lighting and security cameras, boundary fencing and the construction of a new access and entrance improvement works.

In refusing planning permission, Donegal County Council said there was an absence ‘of detailed specifications for the types of materials that would be used as digestate’.

The local authority said that ambiguity had arisen from ‘inconsistencies within the documentation in relation to the ratio of digestate that would be made up from ‘farm byproducts’.

The Council highlighted that to grant permission would have a ‘significant detrimental impacts on residential amenity, the environment (including public health) and Natura 2000 sites over an expansive area’.

The developer was informed that the Council said the development could give rise to an obstruction of the public road network and generate traffic hazards and may also lead to flooding and have detrimental impacts on residential amenity, public health, and Natura 2000 sites.

An objection had also been lodged against the proposed development by a local farmer, who expressed concern at the site being operational 24 hours a day, ‘creating noise and odours which will be blown directly into the path of our residence by the wind’.

He said the food supply required to feed the digester ‘would put ‘traditional farming enterprises at risk and at a major disadvantage in East Donegal’.

Fears were also expressed over an increased number of heavy goods vehicles that would be using the road system and said a development of this scale ‘would change the aesthetic of the local landscape and nature of our local environment’.

He wrote: “It should be development on an industrial estate or down field side or at the very least close to a national gas pipeline or injection point to create efficiency in transporting the gas into the national grid.”