Diageo’s €200m Newbridge brewery plan attracts lone objector

Brewing giant Diageo’s plans for a €200 million brewery on a greenfield site outside Newbridge are being stalled by a Kildare man who believes it should instead be built in Athy.

John Lynch, from Athy, is the sole objector to the proposal. He has lodged an appeal with An Bord Pleanála against Kildare County Council’s decision last month to grant planning permission for the project.

The new 24/7 facility will brew lagers and ales including Rockshore, Harp, Hop House 13, Smithwick’s, Kilkenny and Carlsberg. The new brewery will deliver 70 jobs when operational and is designed to support the future growth of Diageo Ireland’s beer brands.

It will have a capacity of two million hectolitres and will be the second largest brewing operation in Ireland after Diageo’s operation at St. James’s Gate

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Mr Lynch of Cloney, Athy said the proposal for a site at Littleconnell should be rejected and the brewery built instead in Athy on environmental grounds.

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Mr Lynch said that if there was ever a competition for a future brewery site of this scale in this country, Athy “would win out by miles from a financial point of view”.

He said that he was now calling for planning permission to be refused and for Diageo “to seriously consider Athy as the most environmentally friendly and profitable location for a brewery of this size”.

Mr Lynch said he had no vested interest in the case but stated that “our grandchildren will perish prematurely if we do not take care of our environment every single day by every single person in the world”.

Mr Lynch stated that the proposed brewery is very welcome to south Kildare “but it is in the wrong location from a climate change and environmental point of view”.