Business

An Bord Pleanála refuses to hold oral hearing on Amazon data centres plan

Planning board faced calls for oral hearing from groups opposing Amazon’s proposal for north Dublin

Amazon is seeking permission for three data centres in north Dublin. Photograph: iStock

Gordon Deegan
Tue Jul 2 2024 - 19:32

An Bord Pleanála has rejected a call for it to stage an oral hearing into plans by Amazon Web Services (AWS) to construct three new data centres in north Dublin.

Fingal County Council granted planning permission last year to AWS firm Universal Developers LLC for the three new data centre buildings with a combined power load of 73MW for the AWS data centre campus on a 65-acre landholding at Cruiserath Road, Dublin 15.

The council granted planning permission despite opposition from a number of groups.

Five third parties lodged appeals against the grant of planning permission – Friends of the Earth, the Fingal One Future Group, Dr Colin Doyle, John Conway and Louth Environmental Group and Mannix Coyne.

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On behalf of Friends of the Earth, its head of policy, Jerry MacEvilly, requested An Bord Pleanála to stage an oral hearing.

Mr MacEvilly told the appeals board that the proposed development would impose significant pressures on electricity sector decarbonisation “and it is at best unclear how the operation of the proposed development over its lifetime will be compatible with the increasingly stringent carbon budgets”.

However, in a letter to parties, the appeals board has stated that “it has decided to determine the appeal without an oral hearing”.

The appeals board has told the AWS firm, the council and the appellants that it “has concluded that the appeal can be dealt with adequately through written procedures”.

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The letter explained that the board “has absolute discretion to hold an oral hearing and generally holds one where this will help its understanding of a particularly complex case or where it considers that, in a case involving significant national or local issues, the written submissions need to be supplemented by an oral hearing of the issues”.

The appeals were lodged last October and An Bord Pleanála has twice written to parties to defer a decision in the case.

The appeals board had been aiming to make a decision on May 10th but wrote to parties on May 8th advising that it wasn’t able to meet the revised timeline as a consequence of the current backlog of cases on hand.

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The letter states that “this case will be determined as soon as practicable”.

Accounts filed in recent days show that the Irish arm of Amazon Web Service’s data centre business grew by €1.22 billion or 25 per cent to €6.08 billion last year.

Accounts by Amazon Data Services Ireland (ADSI) Ltd show as revenues increased operating profits went up by 21 per cent to €40.07 million.

Gordon Deegan

Gordon Deegan

Gordon Deegan is a contributor to The Irish Times

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