Planning permission may be required where a person resumes quarrying activity at a site where that use has been abandoned or renewed activity amounts to an intensification of use of the quarry. If there is a doubt as to whether planning permission is required, the matter can be referred to An Bord Pleanála for decision.
The Planning and Development Act, 2000, requires the registration of quarries, which are over five years in operation with the planning authorities. Planning authorities will be entitled to impose environmental conditions on the operation of registered quarries, following a public notification procedure. In the case of the many quarries, which have been in use since before the coming into force of the Local Government (Planning and Development) Act, 1963, a planning authority may decide that a quarry requires environmental impact assessment where, in its view, the continued operation of the quarry would be likely to have significant effects on the environment. In such a case, an application for planning permission must be made to the planning authority. Draft planning guidelines to assist the implementation of this section of the Act will be prepared by my Department in consultation with relevant bodies this year and it is my intention to bring the provision into force in the autumn.
Where monitoring reports in relation to quarrying are received by local authorities, I am not aware of any lack of expertise in local authorities in reading and interpreting those monitoring reports on quarries.
