Plans for a €1 billion data centre campus and solar farm on a 600-acre site in Westmeath have been stalled.
This follows 10 separate third-party appeals being lodged with An Coimisiún Pleanála (ACP) against a decision last month by Westmeath County Council granting planning permission to Red Admiral DC Ltd for the scheme.
Red Admiral DC Ltd, which is owned by Offaly businessman Nigel Reams and forms part of his Lumcloon Energy Group, secured planning permission for a six-unit data centre and a decentralised energy resource on townlands across Rochfortbridge, Co Westmeath.
The council granted planning permission despite local opposition with 55 submissions lodged concerning the initial plans.
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The third-party appeals have been lodged with ACP by David Mahon, Eamon Duigenan, Frank Kelly and others, Mary Joe Kelly, John Conway and Louth Environmental Group, Stefania Oggioni, Martin Knox, Gerard Carey, William Carey and Damien Gavin.
One of the appellants is local farmer William Carey, who has told ACP he was making the appeal on behalf of his wife, four children, his uncle and himself.
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Carey is seeking an ACP oral hearing into the application and told the planning body that “overall, we believe that this development will have a significant and long-lasting impact on our home, our family, our farming activities and the wider local community”.
Carey said “the cumulative effects of increased traffic, noise, vibration, light pollution, visual intrusion and pressure on local infrastructure would fundamentally change the character of this rural area and reduce the quality of life for those who live and work here”.
Ennis resident Martin Knox told ACP the application should be refused as the greenhouse emissions from the data centre “are enormous and climate damaging”.
The applicant said the data campus could emit 493,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year and in a planning condition the council said that prior to the commencement of the project the applicant was to submit details of a corporate power purchase agreement demonstrating that electricity consumed by the development was matched by new renewable electricity generation.
The council stated that it was including the condition “in the interests of climate action and sustainable development”.
The council planner’s 75-page report, which recommended that planning permission be granted, concluded that the proposal represented “a co-ordinated and strategically located infrastructure development that makes efficient use of existing energy and telecommunications infrastructure, including the established grid connection serving the site”.
