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\nThe section of the A5 challenged in court in June was a 55km section linking Strabane and Ballygawley<\/p>\n
Stormont’s Infrastructure minister is to appeal the decision of a Belfast court to overturn permission for Northern Ireland’s biggest roads project.<\/p>\n
In June, Belfast’s High Court found in favour of landowners who had opposed the redevelopment of the A5 road through Tyrone and Derry.<\/p>\n
The judge said there was insufficient evidence that the project complied with Stormont’s own legally binding climate change legislation.<\/p>\n
Stormont’s Climate Change Act of 2022 puts an onus on Stormont departments to ensure Northern Ireland meets its emissions targets and carbon budgets on the way to net zero by 2050.<\/p>\n
Mr Justice McAlinden said he had seen insufficient evidence that the building and operation of the new A5 fitted with this legal requirement.<\/p>\n
The \u00a31.2 billion upgrade is an important link for the wider northwest, including Donegal, and is being supported with \u20ac600m of Irish Government money.<\/p>\n
In July, Infrastructure Minister Liz Kimmins flagged her intention to appeal but needed the support of her Executive colleagues.<\/p>\n
\nThe section of the A5 challenged in court in June was a 55km section linking Strabane and Ballygawley<\/p>\n
Today she said she had secured executive approval, and the case could now proceed to Northern Ireland’s Court of Appeal.<\/p>\n
“I have instructed legal counsel to submit an appeal, and that will be done imminently ahead of the deadline for appeal, which is Friday 8 August,” she said.<\/p>\n
She added: “So that is be it currently being finalised. I think it’s fair to say that the officials and myself and my team have been working night and day to ensure that we are submitting a very robust appeal, whilst also looking at all of the other options, and we continue to work through that in parallel to the appeal that we will be lodging.”<\/p>\n
The High Court decision to quash permission for the project was greeted with dismay by supporters.<\/p>\n
They had campaigned vociferously on behalf of the new road, citing safety concerns on what is an existing single carriageway that carries a large volume of business and farm traffic.<\/p>\n
The huge upgrade is a flagship project of the Northern Ireland Executive.<\/p>\n
Since the scheme to build a dual carriageway was first proposed, more than 50 people have been killed along the road.<\/p>\n
It has been dubbed the most dangerous road in Ireland.<\/p>\n
Landowners have successfully challenged the project three times, predominately on environmental grounds.<\/p>\n
They are opposed to the impact on farms and homes and say the existing road could be improved rather than building a new one.<\/p>\n
The land vested runs to more than 3,000 acres and affects more than 300 farms.<\/p>\n
Niall McKenna of the A5 Enough is Enough group said the news of the appeal comes as as a relief to the families of victims of this road and will be very much supported by them.<\/p>\n
In a statement, he said that “enough people have died on the A5. It is high time the courts stopped future lives being lost on this cruel road.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Stormont’s Infrastructure minister is to appeal the decision of a Belfast court to overturn permission for Northern Ireland’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":212223,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5011],"tags":[1144,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-318025","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-northern-ireland","8":"tag-northern-ireland","9":"tag-uk","10":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114972363870411461","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318025","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=318025"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318025\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/212223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=318025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=318025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=318025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}