'Keep the pressure on' — Ballyshannon Action Group

The Ballyshannon Action Group are ramping up their campaign against the proposed Kilsaran quarry at Racefield by asking people to contact their local representatives and keep the pressure on, writes Brian Byrne.

Their latest social media post notes that there has been very welcome cross-party support for their campaign since the beginning, but say that they 'need everyone to know that this issue is not going away'.

"If you are angry that we are having to fight to protect our community against the unsustainable development of a major quarry on a greenfield site here in the rural residential node of Ballyshannon ... please get in touch with local representatives and TDs and make your voice heard," they say in their latest Facebook post. "This area of Kildare needs a permanent solution to fix a planning system that is facilitating the kind of large-scale quarrying that is subsuming communities around Kilcullen with no end in sight."

The group note that all of Kilsaran’s existing quarries in this area have had planning permissions extended over and over again. "Their site at Silliot Hill on the Naas Road in Kilcullen will be 43 years in operation if it closes at the end of its current duration — and that is a very big ‘IF’ as it was only granted its initial planning permission for a period of 10 years."

Kildare County Council's initial refusal for the Racefield project was overturned by An Bord Pleanala. The action group are currently awaiting a High Court decision on whether they can have a Judicial Review of the ABP decision.

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