Council opposes North Mayo windfarm

A proposed windfarm planning application for North Mayo, which is currently before An Coimisiún Pleanála (ACP) for consideration, poses a material contravention to the Mayo County Development Plan, according to a senior official with Mayo County Council.

Speaking at the June meeting of the authority, Senior Executive Planner Brendan Munnelly, provided background to a proposal from Constant Energy Ireland, which is seeking permission to erect 16 wind turbines, a permanent 110kv substation, battery energy storage system (BESS), and associated works within the townlands of Ballymurphy, Ballynaleck, Barnhill Lower, Barnhill Upper, Barroe, Billoos, Carn, Carrickanass, Carrowmore, Castlelacken Demesne, Castletown, Conaghra, Glebe, Lackanhill, Lecarrowtemple, Lissadrone East and Lissadrone West across North Mayo. The project is known as Tirawley Windfarm and will be adjudicated upon by ACP under critical infrastructure legislation.

A detailed sixty-page report prepared by the council’s planning section on the project was overseen by Mr Munnelly, with the recommendation that ACP refuse permission for the development. 

Mr Munnelly stated: “What is proposed here was presented to councillors previously at their meeting last November. However, subsequent to that meeting, ACP decided there were some discrepancies in the documents submitted and the application was returned as invalid, which is why the developers are resubmitting it, but it is essentially the same.” 

He told the forum that the windfarm would cover a large area of over 108 hectares and be arranged in seven individual sites containing one to five turbines, each of which would be 134 metres above ground level.

“As before, we had pre-planning discussions with them on the new submission and reiterated our opposition to the proposal, in terms of the impact it would have, and particularly the five or six located to the north around Lacken Hill and Castlelacken, which we feel would have a severe detrimental visual impact and on the coastline itself, especially when viewed from Downpatrick Head.

“The first application was assessed under our current renewable energy strategy from 2011 and only three of the proposed windmills then were located in the stated preferred area for large windfarms, with eight more proposed in the Tier 2 area and five more proposed where the area is designated as undesired for windmills, in open countryside.” 

Mr Munnelly said a draft of the proposed new Renewable Energy Strategy (RES) had been put on public display, with all submissions currently being evaluated.

“[Under the new RES], we consider the location to be even more inappropriate and unsuitable for windfarm development and it is the local authority’s contention that when the new strategy is ratified and becomes part of the Mayo County Development Plan, to grant permission would be a material contravention of this development, so we have opposition to it and that remains our stance.” 

Cllr Jarlath Munnelly supported the recommendation from the planning department to oppose the project, adding: “We have invested a lot of time on our County Development Plan and more recently our Renewable Energy Strategy and it is very important we defend the strategy we make. It is also very important heed is paid to that at national level. It should be the main determinant of what happens and doesn’t happen.” 

He continued: “This is a highly speculative application and not really rooted in logic. It doesn’t enjoy local community support, and no serious effort was made by developers to engage with them. There is a real onus now on developers of large-scale projects to engage with and in fact be a partner with the local community.

“Fundamentally, this proposal would damage the spectacular landscape of Céide to Downpatrick and on to Killala and beyond as well as the households in these areas. It would destroy the tourism offering we enjoy in North Mayo, especially given that the fantastic document just produced of the plan for Wild Mayo, which for the first time provides a roadmap on how to develop tourism in North Mayo, and this project is completely at variance with that. It would ruin the Wild Mayo plan and all the good work done by the people in Ballycastle and Killala and around who contributed to it. The reality is we cannot ride two bicycles at the one time, so we either support the area as an industrial windfarm or as a tourism destination, but you can’t have both.” 

Cllr Munnelly pointed out there are also plans for the Céide Fields to be a designated UNESCO world heritage site and the windfarm would go against that, adding that Palmerstown Bridge is a very important structure that connects Lacken with Killala and it would not withstand the construction traffic that would impact on it. 

Cllr John O’ Hara said the council is heavily promoting the Lacken/Belderrig area for tourism and it is clearly “not the right place for the windmills”, adding: “They would destroy where we are trying to bring tourism.” 

Cllr Harry Barrett said: “I ask the question, who benefits form this? These developers try to tell us they will help us meet our renewable energy targets, but you can put that in the bin because it is just nonsense. All of these developments are being used nowadays to satisfy the massive electricity demands for data centres. If we industrialise this part of our county, we are like a hamster in a cage, and all the time the energy and electricity bills of people in this county are increasing, all because of these data centres, which are costing on average €400 a year per family.

“This planning application relates to a very sensitive area and is breaching our County Development Plan. We are letting a coach and horses rip through our plan if this is allowed to happen, which will be another example of us losing control of our own policies and our own resources if it goes through.” 

Cllr Annie May Reape said the developer made "so little effort" to contact the local community and instead was trying to ride roughshod over the people living there. Saying she could not understand why it would even be proposed, given the area in question is very sensitive and has far too much to offer rather than putting in some wind turbines, she said: “It is a part of the Wild Atlantic Way that we all love to go and visit because it is so unspoiled. I am totally opposed to this development and fully agree with the recommendation to refuse.”

Members agreed to support the council recommendation for ACP to refuse the application.

• Published as part of the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme.