Manna, founded by serial tech entrepreneur Bobby Healy, was recently hit with an enforcement action by Fingal after inspectors found it was operating launch sites without planning permission, including from the base in a car park at the health and leisure centre Junction 6 in west Dublin.<\/p>\n
Last week, the company applied to Fingal County Council seeking retention permission for an \u201caerial delivery hub\u201d at Junction 6. If successful, it would allow the company to continue delivering from the site, despite recent criticism from local councillors.<\/p>\n
According to planning documents, Manna seeks to continue operating the aerial delivery hub, maintaining hours of 9am to 9pm, seven days a week.<\/p>\n
The business also said its drone deliveries from the hub, and across Dublin 15, included a wide range of everyday necessities. These included groceries, prepared food, beverages, books, clothing, and other household items.<\/p>\n
Manna is understood to operate just two standard car park spaces in a 350-space car park at Junction 6, delivering for five nearby businesses. The retention application does not include any new structures or a change of use at the site.<\/p>\n
In July, Manna\u2019s Healy denied wrongdoing.<\/p>\n
Manna has been embroiledin a row in the Blanchardstown area over the noise of its flying service vessels. The company recently claimed hundreds of people signed a letter of support for its services in Dublin 15.<\/p>\n
However, Labour councillor John Walsh told the Sunday Independent in July that he welcomed the action taken by Fingal requiring Manna to dismantle its unauthorised base at Junction 6.<\/p>\n
Walsh claimed a \u201c\u2018Wild West\u2019 situation was developing in Dublin 15.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe planning process exists to protect the rights of residents and to allow communities to be consulted.\u201d<\/p>\n
Walsh said he wrote to the council seeking \u201cfull enforcement\u201d of planning law after he received more than 100 complaints from residents.<\/p>\n
He also called on the Government to regulate the sector properly.<\/p>\n
There has been debate over drone delivery and current planning laws.<\/p>\n
Dublin City councillor Janet Horner recently said the regulation of commercial drone operations was a \u201cgrey area\u201d in terms of planning.<\/p>\n
Manna has raised $60m (\u20ac52.5m) in funding, including a $30m round in March.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Manna, founded by serial tech entrepreneur Bobby Healy, was recently hit with an enforcement action by Fingal after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":63981,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[79,18,19,17,1265],"class_list":{"0":"post-63980","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-sean-pollock"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63980","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63980"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63980\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63981"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}