Judgement has been reserved in campaigners’ legal bid to overturn the decision to approve the excavation of gas storage caverns under Larne Lough.
As the Belfast Telegraph reports, the coalition of local campaigners — under the banner of No Gas Caverns — and Friends of the Earth NI took their case to the Court of Appeal after their application for judicial review was dismissed last August.
Among their claims, they say that hyper-saline discharges from the excavation process would create a marine wildlife “dead zone” in the lough.
They also contended that Edwin Poots — then minister at the Northern Ireland Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) — was required to seek consent from the NI Executive before green-lighting the project in November 2021.
Counsel for DEARA, however, insisted that Poots had legal authority to act unilaterally in his decision to award the marine licence to Islandmagee Energy, a subsidiary of Infrastrata-owned Harland and Wolff, for the excavation of seven 1,350m-deep caverns with an intended storage lifespan of 40 years.
The Belfast Telegraph has more on the story HERE.
