Coillte has said it will engage with stakeholders, including Galway County Council, to “work through” potential options to deliver on its ambition to redesign 30,000ha of peatland forests by 2050.
The semi-state body confirmed that it will not appeal Galway County Council’s recent decision to refuse planning permission for Coillte’s proposed peatland rehabilitation project in Derryclare Co. Galway.
Coillte sought a 10-year planning permission to restore and rehabilitate 281ha of Atlantic blanket bog and heathland which is currently planted with lodgepole pine and Sitka spruce forests. It also planned to convert 62ha of forestry to native woodland.
In a statement to Agriland, Coillte said it “remains fully committed” to its ambition to redesign 30,000ha of peatland forests by 2050 for “climate and ecological benefits”.
“Coillte will engage with its key stakeholders, including Galway County Council, to work through potential options for delivering on its ambition going forward,” according to the statement.
Coillte
While the site itself, for which Coillte requested planning permission, is not the subject of any designations, it sits immediately abounding the Twelve Bens/Garraun Complex Special Area of Conservation (SAC).
In its decision last month, Galway County Council said that “adverse impacts” on the integrity of the SAC and Connemara Bog Complex SAC and other European sites “cannot be excluded”.
The refusal is “a big disappointment”, Coillte’s recently appointed chair designate, Vivienne Jupp told the Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine last week.
“It is disappointing to us. We are going to have to take a good look at it and see whether we can engage with the county councils.
“This is potentially something that will arise with other county councils because they are the ones who take a look at these planning applications, and we need to get the proper authority to move forward with it,” Jupp told the committee.