before being held on Friday.,<\/a> where commissioner Jacqueline McParland heard arguments.<\/p>\nAppearing on behalf of Gravis Planning, Stewart Beattie KC said the government had a legislative duty to work towards climate change targets contained in the 2022 Climate Change Act.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe duty imposed by that Act is remarkably high in terms of renewable energy targets,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the context of a scenario now described by both the legislature and the council as a crisis, we say that against those factors, that of itself gives rise to exceptional circumstances.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, Conor Fegan, appearing for the council, said granting permission would lead to a plethora of applications ignoring environmental regulations.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou would create a perverse incentive for renewable energy operators to entirely circumvent the environmental impact assessment regime,\u201d he argued.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo build it out and then come back later and say \u2018it doesn\u2019t matter, look at how great the benefits are of renewable energy\u2019, that will open the floodgates to renewable energy operators being in a position where they may decide to crack on with the development and ask for permission afterwards, safe in the knowledge that the benefits of their scheme will get them over the exceptional circumstances hurdle.\u201d<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
A section of the plant in Co Tyrone. Pic: Martin McKeown<\/p>\n
Mr Fegan said mitigations discussed had not been in place since the plant had been operating, and were still not in place today, and that the company had an unfair advantage by not previously having to abide by planning conditions.<\/p>\n
The commissioner also heard the appellant had \u201cgained financially\u201d from the plant, and Mr Fegan added there was evidence of historical harm on designated sites.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you were to grant permission you would effectively be allowing the developer to get away with something which they would not have been able to get away with as a matter of law if they had applied correctly on a prospective basis,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Mr Beattie said planners did not accept they had an unfair advantage.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo one has been prevented or precluded from being involved in the industry,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s no legal principle that says that planning permission can\u2019t be granted retrospectively. \u2018You made money\u2019 is not an answer.<\/p>\n
![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/f46f785a-1507-4db2-87d1-302527e0ea19.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
The site at Dunnalong Road, Bready, has been in operation since 2016<\/p>\n
News Catch Up – Friday 12th September <\/p>\n
\u201cIn a climate emergency, the request being made here is that you reduce the renewable energy provision. You\u2019re being asked in effect to remove that renewable energy source from the grid.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ms McParland also heard from an NI Environment Agency representative, who said current research was pointing towards extra emissions systems being needed for anaerobic digester plants.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn all the research that\u2019s been done on digestate, the anaerobic digestate actually increases the amount of reactive nitrogen,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a growing realisation that anaerobic digesters without the nutrient recovery systems such as the Vapogant are problematic and they actually increase reactive nitrogen release.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ms McParland said she would be carrying out a site visit and hoped to rule on the appeal before Christmas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Appeal told such a move over Co Tyrone anaerobic digestion facility could encourage others to ignore planning regulations…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":425330,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3843],"tags":[5815,728,1300,70,1210,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-425329","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-derry-city-and-strabane-district-council","9":"tag-environment","10":"tag-liam-tunney","11":"tag-science","12":"tag-tyrone-news","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115206295900374355","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425329","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=425329"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425329\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/425330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=425329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=425329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=425329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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<\/p>\n