Local campaigners are taking their challenge against proposed gas caverns under Larne Lough to the Court of Appeal, following its dismissal by the High Court in August.
As previously noted on Afloat.ie, all seven grounds of the legal challenge brought jointly by campaign groups No Gas Caverns and Friends of the Earth NI were dismissed at the High Court in Belfast.
But as Belfast Live reports, the groups are mounting an appeal of Justice Michael Humphreys’s ruling under two grounds: failure to refer the marine licence applications to the Executive Committee; and the taking into account of an irrelevant consideration, namely the fossil fuel scheme’s promise of a ‘community fund’.
The groups argue that former Environment Minister Edwin Poots acted unlawfully when he approved a marine license for plans to store half a billion cubic metres of natural gas under the lough.
It’s feared that “hyper-saline” water that would be released by carving out the salt caverns beneath the lock would threaten vulnerable marine wildlife and even create a “dead zone”.
Belfast Live has more on the story HERE.
