LAST MONTH, AN Bord Pleanála refused planning permission for a large-scale housing project in Dublin due to concerns for the Light-Bellied Brent Goose.
The Light-bellied Brent Goose is a small dark goose that migrates from high-Arctic Canada to winter in Ireland.
The Irish population is seen as being internationally significant and the Brent Goose is amber-listed in Ireland since the majority of the birds winter at fewer than ten sites here.
Birds on the amber-list are deemed to have an “unfavourable conservation status in Europe”.
Plans had been drafted for 330 apartments, 60 assisted living units and retail units at the site of the former Cadbury’s pitch and putt course at Oscar Traynor Road, Coolock in Dublin 5.
However, An Bord Pleanála was not satisfied that the proposed development would not adversely affect the integrity of European conservation sites, namely the North Bull Island Special Protection Area (SPA), South Dublin Bay and River Tolka SPA and the Baldoyle Bay SPA.
It was stated that there is evidence that the appeal site is part of a network of amenity grasslands that are an ex-situ foraging habitat for the Light Bellied Brent Goose.
However, consultants for OTR Development Company, Tom Phillips+Associates, wholly rejected the Light Bellied Brent Goose reason for refusal.
The consultancy had stated that the homes “are desperately needed amidst the current housing crisis”.
A Director at Tom Phillips stated that a report lodged with the application concluded that the development of the site would not have a negative effect on the LBBG population for Dublin Bay.
It was further stated that four years of site specific survey data confirmed that the Cadbury site is no longer used by the LBBG and there is no evidence that the LBBG would have been adversely affected.
Gavin Lawlor is the president of the Irish Planning Institute, which represents around 1,000 planners in Ireland.
These members work across the private sector, within regional authorities and for semi-state bodies, such as the Land Development Agency.
“So it’s a very broad church of membership,” said Lawlor, “and therefore a very broad base in terms of view.”
“Everybody goes to the old argument of animals versus humans, the reverse of George Orwell’s 1984 stuff,” said Lawlor, “but it’s a little bit more fundamental and basic than that.”
He told The Journal that “we can all agree that we need a lot more houses and it’d be better to build them in areas that are already serviced, than trying to expand out into the countryside”.
In the case of the former Cadbury’s site, Lawlor noted that it’s a brownfield site, meaning it is land that was previously developed but has since been abandoned or underutilised.
“That’s what the national planning framework says, it wants us to favour brownfield development like this site in question over greenfield development.”
The National Planning Framework, published in 2018, aims to guide strategic planning and development for Ireland until 2040.
It includes a target for at least 40% of all new housing to be delivered within the existing built up areas on brownfield sites.
However, Lawlor noted that Ireland has been “very poor at dealing with biodiversity issues and environmental protection” and that this is partly a resourcing issue.
The National Parks & Wildlife Service is responsible for the designation of conservation sites in Ireland.
Lawlor told The Journal that “until very recently, it had no resources being invested in it”.
“They had a very small human resource team to deal with a very big problem in terms of designation and protection of species,” said Lawlor.
While Brent Geese were spotted on the former Cadbury’s site previously, the developers said this last happened around four years ago.
An Appropriate Assessment was carried out on the site in question on behalf of the developers.
This assessment looks at the potential adverse effects of a project on Special Areas of Conservation and Special Protection Areas.
It said that since the 2020/2021 winter season, there has only been one indication that Brent Geese have been using the habitats within the development and that the overgrown grasslands are “suboptimal for foraging Brent Geese”.
Meanwhile, Lawlor said the “frustration” in relation to this site is that “it ticks all the boxes from a planning perspective”.
“You couldn’t find a better one that would meet all of the current policy criteria.
“It has fantastic public transport, it’s serviced by water and it’s a brownfield redevelopment of a site, it’s a high-density scheme.
“And it’s refused on the basis of an issue that should have been dealt with at the development plan stage, before the planning application.”
However, Lawlor added that it would be “overly simplistic” to say too many developments are being refused because of such ecological concerns.
He also remarked that Ireland is grappling with three crises; in biodiversity, housing, and the climate crisis.
“All are interrelated, all are very pressing and they have to be managed in balance,” said Lawlor.
“When the priority is placed on any one of those over the other, the other fingers tend to react.
“It’s complex but in this instance, the frustration is that the issue of the Brent geese should have been considered when they were adopting the development plan.”
Meanwhile, environmental journalist John Gibbons took issue with the developers arguing that there is a “desperate need” for the apartments.
“The desperate need the developers specify is the desperate need of the developers to make money,” said Gibbons.
He added that we shouldn’t be “taking our cue on housing needs from developers as they have a strong vested financial interest”.
Gibbons told The Journal that the migratory path of the Brent Geese is one that “will have been travelled by these geese for hundreds, if not thousands of years”.
“We have to just be more respectful of nature, we can’t just say, ‘we need that space now, and that’s too bad’.”
He said that any development which interferes with areas of conservation, like migratory paths for migratory species, would “doom those species to either extinction or to huge loss in habitats, which is the precursor for extinction”.
“This is often framed as a loss for us, and we never look at it from the point of view of whose rights are greater, who got there first?
“I think the idea that a developer can come along and say, ‘I want this area, and anyway, we’re meeting a need and we can just obliterate habitats and migratory pathways that have existed for hundreds and thousands of years’, it’s a dreadful mindset.”
He added that it’s not as simple as the birds going elsewhere.
“It’s basically in their DNA, these pathways, they fly thousands of kilometres to arrive at very specific locations, and they depend on those locations being available.
“If those locations have been disturbed or destroyed, basically those birds will arrive exhausted and hungry and they’ll die.
“Of course we need housing, but we also need wildlife and we need to be far more respectful of the creatures that we share this earth with.”
The developers said there has only been one indication of Brent Geese having used the former Cadbury’s site in the past four years, but Gibbons said if there is any doubt, “we have to err on the side of caution”.
“They may be right, but what if they’re wrong,” said Gibbons.
“That’s the problem, because then they’ve doomed the species.
“They have a strong vested financial interest in one outcome and that doesn’t mean they’re wrong, but it means that strong interest that should be recognised.
“We have to be listening to the experts, and if they haven’t satisfied An Bord Pleanála and the concerns of environmentalists and ecologists around this, then they really have no business,” said Gibbons.
“What if we get this wrong,” added Gibbons.
“Then you’re destroying migratory pathways that are literally ingrained into these birds, and they don’t have the ability to quickly change, and anyway, where would they go?
“On the other hand, developers can go elsewhere, there’s always another site.
“If we have to choose between the profits of developers and the protection of wildlife, I know where I stand.”
-With additional reporting from Gordon Deegan
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