High Court: Pryotechnics company succeeds in quashing decision refusing planning for underground explosives storage

About this case:

• Citation:
  [2026] IEHC 408
• Judgment:
  External link
• Court:
  High Court
• Judge:
  Mr Justice Richard Humphreys

Delivering judgment for the High Court, Mr Justice Richard Humphreys said: “The rejection of this application by the council on grounds of being “commercial” could give rise to the potential for anxiety that the real problem with the proposal is its unfamiliarity, rather than anything that arises from deeper engagement with the particular trade-offs arising in this type of context.”

Background

In 2024, the applicant, an Irish company providing professional fireworks and special effects services, applied to Mayo County Council for permission for a proposed development involving the installation of a shipping container underground for the storage of hazardous pyrotechnics.

The council refused permission, leading the applicant to appeal to the respondent. The applicant contended that the development required a rural location to achieve a separation distance of 229 metres to the nearest road or other building as required under S.I. No. 804, Stores for Explosives Order 2007 which governs the storage of explosives.

The respondent refused permission on the basis inter alia that the rural location of the development was not justified, that the proposal would be “haphazard” and injurious to the amenity of the area and to property prices in its vicinity, and that this “commercial” development would be contrary to the objectives of the county development plan, particularly Objective EDO 54, relating to rural enterprises which are dependent on their locality in rural locations.

The respondent’s inspector concluded that as the proposed development was not “rural enterprise”, the “auxiliary requirement” in the Objective of dependency on a rural location was moot. Notwithstanding, the inspector considered that the contention that a storage facility needing to be located in a rural area on the basis of meeting licencing requirements was unsustainable.

The applicant challenged the decision by way of judicial review, contending that the respondent erred in its interpretation of the Mayo County Development Plan 2022 - 2028, and that the decision was invalid where the respondent made a material error of fact in the characterisation of the proposed development as other than a rural enterprise and/or other than dependent on its locality in a rural location.

The High Court

In respect of the first ground, the court considered that the core issue was the conceptualisation of the applicant’s application as contrary to objective EDO 54, noting: “The simple reason this is fundamentally flawed is that EDO 54 does not prohibit anything. It simply gives policy support to a particular type of development. Other types of development are given policy support by other plan objectives.”

The court observed that Objective EDO 54 does involve a cumulative test, applying to projects that are either rural enterprises, resource development or renewable energy resources, that projects must be dependent on their locality in rural locations, and that the development must not significantly adversely affect the environment.

Finding that the analysis was not the application of a correct test to particular facts, but involved further and more detailed questions of interpretation including the meaning of “rural enterprise” and the concept of dependency on locality in rural locations, the court considered that contrary to Sherwin v. An Bord Pleanála [2024] IESC 13, the respondent and its inspector “did not actually interpret the plan provision.”

Applying the test in Re XJS Investments Ltd [1986] I.R. 750, Mr Justice Humphreys considered that the correct interpretation of “rural enterprise” was one which serves the rural community or is suitable for a rural location, and that the concept of dependency on locality in a rural location included cases where conditions for the development are more easily met in rural locations.

The judge explained that the development plan itself stated that “rural-based” employment extends beyond traditional rural sectors to include all aspects of the economy, and as such, to interpret “rural enterprises” as requiring necessarily inherent rurality or that the enterprise needs to be located in a rural area “renders the qualification about locality-dependency otiose and duplicative.” 

On the issue of dependency, the court reasoned that “Very little can be said to need to be located in a rural area”, citing the existence of urban wind and solar farms in the UK and Spain.

Concluding that the term “dependent” should be read in a sense of “drawing support from or being facilitated by a rural location as opposed to some form of sine qua non”, the court was satisfied that a project which is significantly more suited to a rural as opposed to an urban area is capable of being regarded as dependent on a rural location even if that falls short of some absolute need, and is also capable of meeting the test for being a rural enterprise by virtue of being an enterprise suitable for a rural area.

Noting that the application of the correctly interpreted plan to the facts would be a matter for remittal, Mr Justice Humphreys considered the second ground, finding the real issue was not error of fact, but the respondent’s unduly restrictive interpretation of the plan.

Having regard to the respondent’s position that it had not made a mistake on either point and that what was involved were not questions of fact but questions of evaluative judgment, the court highlighted that “not everything can be collapsed into evaluation. There has to be a correct interpretation of the plan first, and evaluation only gets going within whatever scope is afforded by that correct interpretation. We don’t get to that point in this case.”

Conclusion

Accordingly, the High Court quashed the decision and remitted the matter to a point prior to the inspector’s report to reconsider the appeal.

Rocket Pyrotechnics (Ireland) Limited v An Coimisiún Pleanála [2026] IEHC 408