DUBLIN LOCAL AUTHORITIES have cancelled plans for a giant landfill near Lusk in north Dublin.

The proposed ‘superdump’ had been in the work for 14 years, but had met with significant opposition from the local community.

Fingal County Council this afternoon said that the plan had been scrapped due to the large costs which would be involved and the “changed circumstances which have rendered the project no longer viable”.

An estimated €35 million has already been spent on the now-defunct project at Nevitt in north county Dublin.

The council says that it retain ownership of the lands that were purchased for the development in 2007, close to the height of the property boom. It will not now proceed with the compulsory purchase of further land in the area.

“We developed this project in good faith for the past 14 years as we had a clear responsibility under the Dublin Waste Management Plan to provide the people of Dublin with the infrastructure they needed and to follow government policy,” said David O’Connor, the Fingal County Manager.

O’Connor said that the decision to proceed would involve costs of up to €45 million, which “in today’s market and in light of evolving national policy could not now be justified”.

The move comes just one month after the Fingal Landfill Project had overcome a final legal challenge to the project following the granting of the necessary planning consent and waste licence.

Fingal County Council had officially applied for planning permission for the landfill in 2006.

The giant million facility had been due to process up to 300,000 tonnes of waste per year – an estimated one-sixth of all the waste dumped in the State every year.

The site selection study for the plant began in 1998 and was delayed significantly by a legal challenge which was not resolved until 2003.

“Deciding not to proceed at this stage has not been a simple decision to make but it is the correct one,” said O’Connor.