Arc21: Planning refusal for waste incinerator overturned

The decision to halt the building of a multi-million pound waste incinerator in north Belfast has been quashed, a High Court judge has ruled.

The project at Hightown Quarry in Mallusk, County Antrim, could thermally treat 300,000 tonnes of black bin waste every year.

A planning proposal for the controversial £240m facility is now expected to be reconsidered.

The project has been the subject of a planning battle for almost a decade.

Northern Ireland recycles about half its household waste.

About a quarter is placed in landfill, but capacity is running out.

The rest is exported for incineration.

Mr Justice Humphreys made the order following a request from the Department for Infrastructure (DfI).

The department was facing a legal challenge after former infrastructure minister Nicola Mallon refused planning permission to six councils - acting as the Arc21 waste management group - in March last year.

Ms Mallon said 5,000 objections were submitted against plans for the facility, which she said could result in an increased market for waste disposal and discourage recycling.

Arc21's six partner councils are Antrim and Newtownabbey Borough Council, Belfast City Council, Ards and North Down Borough Council, Lisburn and Castlereagh City Council, Mid and East Antrim Borough Council and Newry, Mourne and Down District Council.

Arc21 and a private firm, Indaver, were seeking a judicial review of Ms Mallon's decision at a court hearing due next week.

But on Wednesday the High Court heard officials running the DfI - in the absence of an executive - said they would not be contesting the legal challenge.

A barrister for the DfI invited the court to quash Ms Mallon's decision.

The planning refusal "was not accompanied by sufficient rational reasons", they said.

Mr Justice Humphreys congratulated the parties on reaching a consensual resolution, describing it as "a difficult case with a long history".

"Clearly the next steps in the process are not for the court but for others to take," he said.

Indaver's commercial director Jackie Keaney welcomed the ruling as an "important step" to ensure the project will be considered for another planning decision.

The proposal has been dogged by planning delays since the first planning application was submitted in 2014.

It was turned down by the then environment minister Mark H Durkan in 2015, before Arc21 successfully appealed two years later.

In May 2021, 10 members of parliament from Northern Ireland, including SDLP, Sinn Féin and Alliance representatives, wrote to Ms Mallon explaining they had "real concerns" about the project.

In 2022, the BBC's Spotlight programme reported that Antrim and Newtownabbey Borough Council, the council area where the incinerator was intended to be built, no longer wished to take part in the project.

The programme reported the council's chief executive had citied concerns about cost and whether the plant was still needed.