Planners probe D-MAC again - this time over alleged '˜illegal' chimneys

Just over 18 months ago the firm was at the heart of a dispute involving local residents, the now defunct Department of the Environment and Mid Ulster Council’s new planning department.

It had been operating out of unauthorised workshops on its Annagher Road site for nine years, but in one of its first planning decisions following RPA (Reform of Public Administration) the new planning department overturned a demolition order that had been slapped on the site in 2009 by DOE planners.

Local residents were left outraged by the decision.

The Ulster Wildlife Trust claimed at the time that contamination from sand-blasting workshops at the former sandpit site would be ‘disastrous’ for ‘wildlife and biodiversity’ and the ‘health of local residents’.

The area, which had 24 Sandmartin nesting sites, had also been designated a site of Local Nature Conservation Importance in the 2010 Dungannon and South Tyrone Area Plan.

The organisation opposed the 2014 application for a factory at the site and RSPB also warned that any future development would damage the local environment.

Now the council has opened a further enforcement case involving D-MAC.

A spokesperson for the company declined to comment when contacted by the Times on Monday.