A developer is facing claims it unlawfully cleared woodlands at a two-acre site in Co Wicklow because it was a barrier to its plans for a housing project.
Cycling journalist Shane Stokes alleges in the High Court that Dwyer Nolan Developments Ltd’s removal of trees at Season Park Road, Newtownmountkennedy, in February 2025 was an unauthorised development.
It is the position of the developer that its removal of the trees was permitted as an exempted development under the Planning and Development Act 2000.
Dwyer Nolan, which is based in Shankill, south Dublin, fully contests the assertion that the trees were removed because it was seen as an impediment to obtaining planning permission for the housing development.
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Stokes, who lives next door to the site, previously took a successful High Court challenge against planning permission granted for the housing development. The remitted planning application remains live before An Coimisiún Pleánala.
According to Stokes’s court documents, the site contained hundreds of trees and bushes, including yew, oak, birch, willow and ash.
Opening Stokes’s case before Judge Emily Farrell on Thursday, barrister Tom Flynn, appearing with John Kenny and instructed by solicitor Eoin Brady, submitted the developer’s removal of the trees did not fall within the exemption allowed for “felling ... of trees, forests and woodlands” under the 2000 Act.
The developer’s removal of the trees was not exempted “felling”, Flynn submitted, but amounted instead to a “site clearance exercise”. The trees at the site were “simply demolished” using a digger, counsel said.
This assertion was supported by expert evidence provided by an arborist, Flynn said. This was the only expert evidence before the court, and as such, the court should place “great significance” on it, counsel submitted.
Flynn described as “not credible” the developer’s assertion that it had removed the trees to return the land to agricultural use in circumstances where it had “given up” on obtaining planning permission for the housing project.
It was their case the removal occurred as the developer viewed the trees as an “impediment” to obtaining planning permission for the proposed housing project, Flynn said. Counsel submitted the factual background of the removal was important in determining the case.
Niall Handy, barrister for the developer, appearing with Kevin Bell and instructed by AMOSS solicitors, said their defence was simple – the felling was an exempted development, and the onus was on his side to prove that.
Opening his side’s defence, Handy submitted Stokes is seeking to exercise control over lands – adjacent to his family’s lands – not in his ownership. Counsel submitted he was seeking to interfere with the development of the land.
Handy said there was no evidence before the court to support the Stokes side’s assertion that the trees were removed because they were viewed as an impediment to permission for the housing development.
The case continues.
