An appeal has been lodged with An Bord Pleanála against a decision to grant planning permission for Kerrygold to expand its Mitchelstown site.
On June 24, this year, Cork County Council gave the go-ahead for the €40 million (4,362m2) expansion to Kerrygold’s existing facility (6,146m2) for manufacturing, packaging and distributing butter products.
An Bord Pleanála is due to make a decision on the appeal by November 23. Ornua had hoped to start work on the project by the end of the summer however, that will now be delayed.
Kerrygold expansion appeal reasoning
The appellant, Kevin T. Finn of Potter & Finn Chartered Consulting Engineers in Mitchelstown, has argued that when permission was granted, it failed “to take adequate account” of the “malodour” from the effluent (waste/sewage) plant and “traffic” that would be caused not only by this extension, but in addition to that of “both the existing Kerrygold facility and the Dairygold facility at the overall site or sites at Castlefarm Mitchelstown”.
The appellant drew particular attention to the conditions that “fail to take adequate account of the continued use of lorry traffic, service traffic, maintenance traffic and employee traffic” which access the facilities “from the east via the roads through King’s Square Amenity Area”.
He said in his submission that the “detrimental effects” he has set out “would be largely dealt with” if the development included the construction of an internal access road from the effluent plant serving both the Kerrygold and Dairgold facilities to the Mallow Road roundabout and that all traffic from the plant serving the sites accessed them using this internal road.
In addition, he said that the proposed development would “promote further milk production and associated harmful effects on the environment and climate contrary to the objectives to reduce the harmful contribution to climate change from farming”.
“The decision to grant permission for the proposed development is, therefore, contrary to the proper and sustainable development of the area,” he added.
According to Ornua, the current Kerrygold Park facility in Mitchelstown has the capacity to produce and package up to 50,000t of butter per annum. The “state-of-the-art” facility opened in 2016.