Gas-fired Limerick power plant plan is pulled

DEVELOPERS have withdrawn a planning application for a gas-fired power plant in Limerick after more than 800 people signed an online petition against the scheme.

Kilshane Energy sought planning permission from Limerick City and County Council for the €150m project, having identified land at the old quarry site in Luddenmore, near Ballyneety.

The plant would be capable of generating power for up to 300,000 homes, but would primarily be used to tackle energy shortages which may occur during extreme weather periods.

However, there has been huge concern about the proposals in the community, with more than 800 people signing an online petition against the project.

Some 53 groups and individuals have contacted council, mostly opposing the application. In this number was local councillor

Brigid Teefy, who wrote: “This is a rural community and the location of the proposed gas plant in the open countryside is totally unsuitable for this proposed project.

“There are no services to support this proposal and the impact on the rural area of this type of development is unnecessary,” she added.

In the wake of the planning application, an action committee was set up to fight against the blueprint with over 100 locals joining the campaign.

The rationale behind the firm withdrawing the application is unclear, with Kilshane Energy declining to comment.

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However, there are some suggestions that the application was to be removed before the objections. But representatives of the firm only formally wrote to council to request its withdrawal this Monday.

This is after the vast majority of objections had arrived at County Hall.

One of the members of the action committee Suzanne Higgins says residents have welcomed the withdrawal of the application by Kilshane Energy.

But she added: “We know and we’ve all said ourselves that we are not taking our eye off the ball. We feel there will be a new application at some point, whatever it might look like. Whether that’s in a month, six months or even a year, we as a community are going to keep an eye out.”

“We will not allow this plant to proceed with planning. It’s entirely unsuitable and will be a detriment to every individual living here. It offers no benefits to the community, and we must protect our people, land, animals now and for our future, so our children will still have a home which is untarnished by pollution,” the group said in a statement.

Ms Higgins said there is a single-lane, unmarked road around the old quarry, so even getting construction traffic to the site could cause problems.

“The roads and local infrastructure doesn’t cater for it. No gas line is nearby, so this would mean another submission [application to the council]. I don’t know where the nearest gas line is. What will they do? Dig up fields for 3km to 5km – I don’t know how this is feasible,” she added.

The application for the plant details a 44-metre high chimney stack, which Ms Higgins said “would not fit in with the natural landscape” and added it wouldn’t clear adjacent land, with a neighbouring field rising up higher than this.

“If it doesn’t clear neighbouring land, what is the point of having it there,” she asked.

“We are near Lough Gur which is going for a dark-sky initiative. The [gas-fired] site is presumably going to have all-night lighting. These types of plants are often quite loud when generating. Would local animals be spooked by this,” she asked.

Kilshane Energy – backed by Belfast businessman Stuart Draffin – had an application before Fingal County Council to build a similar facility. But these proposals were rejected by planners in north Dublin. Although powered by fossil fuels, gas-fired power generators emit fewer greenhouse gases than existing coal and other fossil fuel plants.