20 Photos Showing the Footprint

of

‘Temporary’ Precious Mineral Exploration and of Permitted Development

Rights

in the Owenkillew Valley, AONB and beside an ASSI and SAC.

To accompany

Save Our Sperrins Submission in response to the Consultation on

Permitted Development Rights

May 2016

Save Our Sperrins

Email:

Photo 1 of 3rd March 2014 of the site on peatland on Curraghinalt mountain where Dalradian marked out site for an explosives store and subsequently was granted approval without the site being properly considered by the customary statutory consultees.

Photo 2 of 21 August 2014 shows the site where the Dalradian explosives store was built pegged out right beside where the harvest their winter peat. The bog cotton is evidence that the peatland is active.

Photo 3 shows Dalradian working on the site for the explosives store.

Photo 4 shows the sludge in the sheugh close to where the diggers are working. This sludge flowed down the hill into the Owenkillew River SAC.

Photo 5 shows the ineffective method subsequently deployed by Dalradian to prevent the sludge from flowing into the river. It simply flowed around the obstruction.

Photo 6 of 3 March 2014 Stop & Enforcement Notice served by DOE at the behest of Dalradian on the

or weatherproofing their family farmstead

This was because Dalradian had an exploration licence for the area.

Photo 7 Shows friends and neighbours protesting at the Planning Office in Omagh on 10 March 2014 calling for the lifting of the Stop & Enforcement Notice.

Photo 8 shows the access to Camcosy Rd which was deemed inadequate and dangerous for the

but which was deemed suitable for Dalradian to use for construction and security vehicles as well as lorries with explosives.

Photo 9 shows the waste rock (below) imported on to the site without planning approval (subsequently approved as processed aggregate)

Photo 10. Whereas DETI’s Factsheet 2015.1 on Mineral Exploration describes mineral exploration as of limited impact, the experience of Curraghinalt shows something very different: changed skyline; much disturbance of land; extensive waste filling; buildings; roads…

Photo 11 shows the building at house more than a mile from the exploratory mine on the Camcosy Road where a gable wall collapsed as a result of the mine blasts.

Photo 12 of the works at the Curraghinalt mineral exploration site show the huge amount of toxic waste rock being stored on the site beside the SAC, far in excess of the approved plan.

Photo 13 shows a dried up stream in the vicinity of the Curraghinalt exploration site.

Photo 14 (below) shows the ongoing mineral exploration in the Owenkillew Valley – not covered by the Dalradian planning approval – very extensive development on the hillside.

Photo 15 shows further extensive mineral exploration work near Curraghinalt

Photos 15 above and 16 show the construction of the ‘temporary’ explosives store and security fencing with tons of concrete and steel on top of the Curraghinalt mountain.

Photo 17 shows the impact on the visual amenity of the Owenkillew Valley AONB and Tourism priority area.

Photo 18 below looking at the Camcosy Road and the Dalradian works site gives some idea of the obtrusive nature of a precious mineral exploration site.

Photo 19 Dalradian were allowed to move huge amounts of earth on the peatland hillside and to create an artificial skyline above

at Curraghinalt

Photo 20 People worry about plumes of dust which bellow from the vent on the hilltop after explosive blasts in the mine. Dalradian refuse to say what toxins are in the dust.

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Save Our Sperrins (SOS) Submission

on

Permitted Development Rights for Mineral Exploration

Part 16 of the Planning (General Permitted

Development) Order (NI) 2015

May 2016

Chairperson

Save Our Sperrins (SOS) www.Facebook.com/SaveOurSperrins

email:

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Context

Save Our Sperrins (SOS) welcomes the opportunity to comment on Permitted

Development Rights (Annex A & B) of the Planning Order.

Save Our Sperrins (SOS) is of the view that PDR is totally inappropriate, is

undermining good planning in the Sperrins, is creating huge problems for the

new Planning Authority and needs to be scrapped as a first step in reviewing and

making fit for purpose NI planning policy on mineral exploration.

Background

Save Our Sperrins (SOS) is a community organisation that is about promoting

good planning in the Sperrins. SOS was formed out of concern that the most

vital assets of this Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty are being endangered by

a lack of well grounded strategic planning and that the area is rapidly being

destroyed both as a place to visit and to live.

• The perception in the community is that there is a real absence of a

coordinated approach for the Sperrins; that the statutory bodies lack any

vision or joined up thinking on the Sperrins AONB; no realisation that the

greatest assets of the area are its people and the unspoilt, unpolluted

natural beauty of the valleys, rivers, streams, hills, bogs, fields, flora and

fauna.

• People see that creeping industrialisation of the Sperrins is undermining

the huge potential of this place as a new tourist destination. There is a

direct contradiction in permitting widespread mineral exploration that is

not subject to effective monitoring or statutory controls in areas

designated as having priority tourism potential.

• The system of the DOE, DETI, PSNI and Roads Service facilitating

Permitted Development Rights for precious mineral exploration projects in

Tyrone has lacked transparency and has exacerbated problems of water

contamination, pollution of an SAC, air pollution, damage to the amenity

and environment of an AONB, in addition to leading to financial liability of

the Planning Authority in the future.

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In response to the consultation questions:

Do you believe that the existing provisions on permitted

development rights for mineral exploration (as set out in Annex A

and B) provide a suitable balance between supporting operational

business activity and environmental protection?

If not, please provide information to support your answer.

• No. Save Our Sperrins (SOS) believes that the provisions for minerals

explorations as facilitated in Part 16 of the Planning (General Permitted

Development) Order (Northern Ireland) 2015 (GDO) undermines

transparency and creates an imbalance between supporting operational

business and environmental protection.

• Fundamental to the balance between operational business activity and

environmental considerations is transparency and the principle of public

participation in environmental decision making.

• Accountability to the public is even more important now in light of the

transfer of responsibility for planning to elected representatives. PDR

destroys public accountability. There is ample evidence from other

jurisdictions how decision makers can come under pressure from

applicants to facilitate their development proposals – even accompanied

by inducements to turn a blind eye to the regulations. The current PDR

system lacks transparency and cuts the public out of the loop. This

creates not just a communications gap but a communications breakdown

and along with this a break in trust.

• Article 1 of the Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation

in Decision Making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters 1998,

the Aarhus Convention, guarantees a citizen’s right to participate in

environmental decision making. The UK as a Member State of the EU is

bound by this Convention. Only in Northern Ireland are citizens denied

this right under Part 16 of the GDO, which permits decisions to be taken

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without public consultation.

• No such relaxed permitted development rights are allowed for mineral

exploration in England, Wales or Scotland. Rather, planning permission is

normally required for exploratory drilling of the scale witnessed in the

North, thus affording the public the opportunity to engage with the

planning before the decision is taken.

• PDR excludes the public of Northern Ireland from their right to participate

in environmental decision making. Denying the public this right generates

mistrust of, and conflict with the lead Planning Department and District

Councils. The Planning Authority would do well at this stage to review how

this can lead to a breakdown between the authority and the community

and dubious planning practice as evidenced recently in the Dalradian

exploratory gold mine in Co Tyrone (Curraghinalt and Crockanboy Hill /

Green Road) and InfraStrata oil drilling project at Woodburn Forest,

County Antrim. In both instances clandestine decision making that

excluded local communities, has not upheld the Aarhus principles and

rights of access to environmental information and public participation.

• It is so important to address these matters now, with the transfer of

planning powers to our eleven new local councils, where democracy,

openness and transparency must be at the heart of decision making in the

public interest.

• Part 16 of the GDO was constructed in planning legislation prior to the

adoption of the Directive 92/43/EEC of the European Parliament and of

the Council of 21 May 1992 on the conservation of natural habitats and of

wild fauna and flora (the Environmental Impact Assessment Directive) into

the Planning (Environmental Impact Assessment) Regulations (Northern

Ireland) 1999. Both the intention of Part 16 and the manner in which it

has been applied by officials causes serious concern. It conflicts with the

principles of greater public participation, openness and transparency in

government, but affords the opportunity to breach the EIA directive and

regulations.

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• In attempting to engage with the Department of the Environment on the

range of matters it appears to SOS that the Department as the competent

authority to apply European Union environmental law has been

systemically failing in this regard. Questions raised by us and also

questions raised on our behalf in the Northern Ireland Assembly are

evaded, avoided and not answered. Serious and persisting questions

remain over decision makers’ ability to properly apply the EIA regulations

regarding Dalradian’s exploration for gold. Recent successful judicial

reviews focusing on environmental matters support our position.

• There is a real urgency to amend the legislation that allows for the

granting of PDR by “default” outside of the EIA Regulations should the

competent authority fail in its statutory duty to assess the likely impact of

exploration on the environment within a specified statutory timeframe.

This was exactly what happened in the case of Woodburn Forest,

providing further evidence of the inadequacies of the Department to take

its public duty seriously. That the public was only informed of this long

after the event, and that it took requests under the Environmental

Information Regulations 2004 to elicit this information, is seriously wrong.

• It is the public who have been at the forefront of identifying and exposing

failures in environmental governance. Had there been a full scale EIA

carried out at Curraghinalt on Dalradian’s gold mining exploration project

K/2013/0072/F the issues of the mining project polluting the Owenkillew

River SAC contrary to conditions 25 & 26, the breach of planning

procedure in allowing the Explosives Store on protected Peatland (cond.

24) and with a dangerous access breaching condition 14 and infilling of

waste rock as per condition 17 would have been identified before they

became a problem. Had Woodburn Forest been the subject of proper

public consultation through the statutory planning process the mistakes of

the Department would have been identified earlier and the competent

authority would have been assisted in complying with its lawful

requirements of the EIA regulations.

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• This failure, amongst others, has now left Mid and East Antrim Borough

Council facing costly litigation, and local councillors accusing Strategic

Planning Division of “gross mismanagement”.

• Furthermore, the requirement for significant environmental information,

including the submission of a Mining Waste Management Plan after

negative EIA screening is conducted, is the clearest indication that the

significance of the likely environmental effects of a project have not been

fully considered, nor understood before the Department concluded that it

was appropriate to confer PDR. This is not compatible with the EIA

directive. The Department will find the Supreme Court ruling on

Champion versus North Norfolk District Council (paras 43-48) of

assistance in this regard. That projects considered under Part 16 of the

GDO are subject to assessment under EIA Regulations and often require

the submission of substantial and complex environmental information,

should, in itself, be sufficient to convince legislators that it is not

appropriate for such projects to benefit from PDR.

• It should be considered unacceptable to grant PDR for exploratory drilling

in the knowledge that other associated development not covered by Part

16 of the GDO but essential to the implementation of that granted under

PDR, requires planning permission and screening and/or assessment

under the EIA regulations. Otherwise, this could be deemed as “project

splitting”, something the courts have deemed to be incompatible with the

EIA directive.

• The new Planning Authority needs to wake up to the serious trap that has

been laid for Councils by PDR with the risk of legal action and even

infraction from the European Commission for failure to comply with the

EIA directive. The removal of Part 16 of the GDO and thereby subjecting

exploratory drilling to the statutory planning process, would remove the

conflict between Part 16 and the EIA directive, safeguarding the Northern

Ireland Executive and local councils from future costly litigation and

potential infraction proceedings.

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Nature of permitted development

This call for evidence specifies that permitted development rights “…often

relate to minor development that is non-contentious and has a minimal

impact to amenity and the environment.”

The documentation from DETI describing ‘mineral exploration’ is

inadequate and fails to depict the scale, extent and nature of works

involved in precious mineral exploration as experienced at Curraghinalt

and at Greencastle, Co.Tyrone. It is important to recognize that

exploratory drilling for minerals, including hydrocarbons, cannot be

‘minor’, in terms of its potential impacts on amenity and the environment.

Nor could this type of development be described as non-contentious.

Indeed, the very manner in which Part 16 allows for PDR to be confirmed

without the knowledge of affected communities, only adds to the

contentious nature of this legislation.

This is further complicated by the Department’s acceptance, as recently as

14 March 2016 ( that works

associated with and required to be in place prior to the implementation of

a project confirmed under PDR, may well constitute development as

defined under Section 23 of the Planning (Northern Ireland) Act 2011 (the

Act), thus requiring planning permission.

Contrasting Theory & Reality of Precious Mineral Exploration

There is a dire and urgent need for joined up planning and policy covering

exploration, mining, waste dumps, water and discharge of toxic waste

into waterways within an overarching framework that gives primacy to

sustainable protection and environmental protection. The PDR system

exacerbates a planning process that is already unfit for purpose. Thus

there is an urgent need for a strategic review of precious mineral

exploration licences in the region.

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- Precious mineral exploration and mining is essentially highly destructive of

the total environment. It is not sustainable development and should not

be allowed in an AONB and should not even be considered near a SAC or

other sensitive landscapes. This must be a primary factor when any

application for precious mineral exploration is being examined.

- In the Owenkillew Valley allowing advanced exploration for precious

minerals is incompatible with the valley’s farming and recognised tourism

potential.

- The existing mineral exploration policy framework has facilitated a

scenario in which environmental tourism and sustainable farming have

been marginalised and trivialised in preference to a narrow interpretation

of ‘economic development’ that blindly seeks to facilitate ‘inward

investment’ with no consideration of the direct and indirect costs to the

public purse, or of the costs of irreparable environmental damage, the

opportunity cost to farming, to rural / eco tourism, to local residents or of

the financial penalties that may be incurred as a result of the damage to

protected environment.

- Rural and Planning Policy have been rubbished in doing this, AONB status

has been ridiculed, the skyline has been changed, protected peatland has

been ripped up and a monstrous and unnecessary explosives store has

been allowed without proper assessment on the top of the hill to the

detriment of the Owenkillew Valley and in violation of the District strategic

priority for tourism for the Valley.

- That current policy on ‘precious mineral exploration’ has allowed the

construction of a 2 km tunnel (big enough for a large truck to drive

through) and the extraction of more than 20,000 cubic metres of rock, a

waste dump and a huge hilltop construction for an explosives store with

high security fencing, waste discharge into the Owenkillew River SAC and

much more development under the guise of “ancillary works” and all this

as precious mineral ‘exploration’. Loud alarm bells ring here of

facilitating / granting planning approval by stealth for a mine in a location

where a planning application for a gold mine would not stand a chance of

approval. And all this has been allowed under the guise of ‘mineral

exploration’ and without the benefit of an EIA.

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- The role, the work undertaken and the monetary value of the work of

GSNI is taken for granted as if it existed to serve private enterprise rather

than public interest. The essential data and information prepared by GSNI

over years at public expense is made available ‘freely’ to the mining

company. This policy needs to be reviewed.

- DETI’s Fact Sheet(Exploration Methods 2015.1 GSNI / DETI) of the

footprint of mineral exploration is massively inaccurate. An updating of

the footprint and of the impact of exploration is overdue and would be

valuably informed by a visit to the Owenkillew Valley at Curraghinalt.

Apart from the project which has been granted planning approval, there

have been and are also numerous drill rig operations with extensive new

roadways through bogland and on hillsides impacting on the water

system, on the environment, on the water, on local roads, on people’s

well being and on the protected SAC – something on which the authorities

appear content to turn a blind eye and to justify by means of ‘PDR’. The

contrast between your presentation of the footprint of mineral exploration

and the reality in the Sperrins is stark. Turning a blind eye or ignoring the

reality of ‘precious mineral exploration’ and PDR is simply not good

enough. The public is losing patience with the rape of the Sperrins.

- The lack of independent monitoring or effective statutory control of

exploration projects is a huge issue also that needs to be addressed.

Relationships appear far too cosy between the developer and the

Departments and statutory control systems are either toothless,

dependant or under resourced. A genuinely independent and effective

environment agency is so urgently required, otherwise the system will

continue to be ineffective.

- Can I give the example of the failure to enforce the requirement to close

or cap boreholes? In such an environmentally sensitive location as the

Owenkillew Valley (with its SAC and fresh water pearl mussels, salmon

spawning beds etc) it is not just proof of the abysmal failure of the

licensing system but a crime that a mining company has been allowed to

continue working unchallenged while bore holes have been allowed to

remain uncapped years after the deadline for them to be closed, spilling

out highly toxic discharges that make their way directly into the river SAC.

If the environmental impact of pollution were taken seriously by the

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authorities the exploration licences would have been long since withdrawn

for such breaches. With PDR, deadlines are meaningless as they are

extended at will to facilitate the mining company.

- A number of serious incidents of pollution from the rigs into the

Owenkillew River upstream of the SAC were downplayed by the

authorities so as not to endanger the inward investment by the mining

company. Such short-sighted and irresponsible action cannot be

tolerated.

- DETI’s Fact Sheet ‘mineral exploration’ refers to ‘closed systems with no

discharge to the local environment’ in environmentally sensitive areas.

The reality at Curraghinalt makes a mockery of what DETI’s document

says. The Canadian mining company is allowed free reign and toxic

discharges with acid water are allowed into the Owenkillew SAC. Why?

The policy and policy enforcement are blatantly inadequate and the use of

the principle of self regulation leaves monitoring and control in the hands

of Dalradian, something which undermines all potential for objective and

effective objective controls.

Conclusion

The PDR arrangements militate against best practice planning. They lack

transparency and block the public from engaging in the planning process. They

enable the taking of decisions in isolation that can have massive impact

downstream and that should be considered in the context of the overall project.

They can lead to controls being ineffective and can have incalculable negative

outcomes that would have been exposed if the matter had been considered as a

planning application and cumulative impacts had been examined. In the

interests of good planning and of open, transparent and fair decision making,

Part 16 of the Planning (General Permitted Development) Order (Northern

Ireland) 2015 must be removed.