The Irish Glass Bottle Company's bid to be allowed to use its premises in Dublin Port for commercial warehousing was rejected by the High Court yesterday.

In a reserved judgment, Ms Justice Carroll said the company was a leasee from the Dublin Port Company of a very valuable 25-acre site near Strand Road, Sandymount, and the East Link Bridge.

She said the company had failed to prove that Dublin Port had unreasonably withheld consent to a change of use for the premises. She held that the company had failed to give Dublin Port all the details to which it was entitled to enable it to reach a decision. The port company was entitled to reach its decision based on its own best interests, she found.

Irish Glass Bottle had written to Dublin Port in August 2000 stating that it was looking at increasing or changing the utilisation of the site to provide warehousing for third parties in addition to their existing activities, or even relocating the manufacturing part of the business to a facility on the outskirts of Dublin.

Ms Justice Carroll said Irish Glass Bottle had decided at the end of 2002 to cease manufacturing glass and had since imported glass. At the same time, the company acquired a glass manufacturing plant in Britain.

Dublin Port was asked by Irish Glass Bottle to endorse amendments to the leases on the basis that there was a growing shortage of warehousing capacity for third-party customers in the general port area.

But Dublin Port chief executive Mr Enda Connellan was concerned that an income stream of £200,000 (mainly profit) would disappear.

It was not clear what Irish Glass Bottle proposed, she said. An increase in warehousing, as Mr Connellan had pointed out, would not lead to any increased revenue and he had contested the need for further warehousing.

He said the port was there to facilitate the movement of goods and not for storage.