Residents vow to block new plastics plant in rural idyll
THE first local authority to support a ban on plastics has approved plans for a plasticmaking factory to be built in one of the most scenic parts of the country.
Cork County Council has granted planning permission for a 4,831sqm plant to be constructed on the outskirts of picturesque Skibbereen.
The proposed factory is to be built on a site that was only rezoned last year from a green belt area to a business area.
And when up and running it will be located within a 10km radius of three outstanding beauty spots that have EUprotected environment status.
Concerned residents have lodged an appeal with An Bord Pleanála to block the factory and it is due to make a decision later this month. Meanwhile, locals have formed a Save Our Skibbereen protest group which will hold a public meeting on Thursday.
Resident Brendan McCormack said: ‘This is an extremely dangerous path forward and it’s very difficult to find any reason why the factory is going into such a locality.
‘It’s a development that goes against everything that this area has going for it.
‘West Cork is all about organic and green and it’s very hard to get your head around why this is happening.
‘This factory will only devalue what we have and if you go through it, on almost every issue it falls down or falls short.
‘It seems that it’s easier to get planning permission for a plastics factory than it is for me to get permission to build another house on my acre of land. This is just not the future we want to see in Skibbereen.
‘We are better than a plastics factory.’
Fiona Vincent agrees: ‘This factory does not come under the description of light industrial with its emissions, noise and smells.
‘Light industrial means that you can put a business into the middle of a residential area but you couldn’t do that with this factory which will have four 17m silos. They say there will be two 17m chimneys but when we got a draughtsman to look at the drawings it looks like there could be four. And all the chemicals used will have to be constantly refrigerated.’
The controversial application by Daly Products Ltd was approved by Cork County Council last December. The firm’s directors are Hugh Miller, Jennifer Miller and Danny Victor Miles, and according to documents held by the Companies Registration Office, it’s a subsidiary of the US multinational RTP.
The selected site is only 3.7km as the crow flies from Lough Hyne – a Special Area of Conservation – and 8.75km from the Roaringwater Bay SAC. A third protected environmental area known as the Sheeps Head to Toe Special Protected Area is also close by and, locals say, a stream on the site connects to the local river which flows into the Roaringwater Bay SAC.
Cork County Council referred queries from this newspaper to its planning department which did not reply.
In a written statement, Daly Products Ltd spokesman Danny Miles welcomed the council’s approval but declined to comment on the matter any further until the appeals process is completed.
‘This will only devalue what we have’