By Ryan Sands
A SPECIAL council meeting on the ‘foul smell from Warrenpoint Port’ took place last week, five months after it was initially proposed.
In October, independent Crotlieve councillor Mark Gibbons’ notice of motion calling for such a meeting and for a number of stakeholders to be invited to it received unanimous backing in the chamber.
His proposal had voiced concern about ‘the ongoing foul smell emanating from Warrenpoint Port, the impact this is having on residents’ quality of life, and the potential risk it poses to public health’.
Since then, Warrenpoint Harbour Authority (WHA) has published an environmental audit into the odour – which, last August, it attributed to household rubbish being recycled by its tenant Re-Gen Waste, and issued an apology for – and said that it would implement all its recommendations in full.
Representatives of WHA, Re-Gen, the Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA) and the council’s Environmental Health Department all attended last Monday’s meeting.
Cllr Gibbons said that he was “very disappointed it has taken five months to get to this point”.
He added that he was “bitterly disappointed” at a number of reports – this included the environmental audit – that were presented at the meeting, describing them as “very patronising at times” and “very wishy-washy”.
The Crotlieve representative also stated that “the most important stakeholders are the people of Warrenpoint”, and that he had received more complaints about the smell than any other issue, with 56 being made during one day of last summer’s Wake the Giant festival alone.
“I think the whole thing is very watered down, I think the residents of Warrenpoint really weren’t listened to, and it was a half-hearted approach,” he said.
“It is absolutely shocking what they had to go through.
“Thankfully, on a more upbeat note, the smell has gone away, I feel.
“I can’t smell anything anymore.
“I think the problem has been dealt with, and I haven’t had any more complaints.
“I’m in round Warrenpoint every day, and I haven’t smelled it in a couple of weeks.
“I hope to God it is the end of this saga.”
The council unanimously agreed to a number of proposals on the issue, which were tabled by Laura Devlin (SDLP, Mournes) and seconded by Oonagh Hanlon (Sinn Féin, Downpatrick).
Cllr Devlin proposed that the local authority write to DAERA (Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs) Minister Andrew Muir to ask that he look at the possibility of “a policy workaround” that would allow NIEA monitoring reports of Re-Gen’s port facility to be shared directly, redacted if necessary, with WHA; proposed that it also write to NI Water to ask why it doesn’t record details of foul water discharges from two nearby treatment facilities and to request that they begin to collect this; and proposed that meetings “with all the bodies that are here” be held in future.
WHA chair Dr Gerard O’Hare said that they “wouldn’t have a problem attending such a forum, if you require that a couple of times a year”.
He also encouraged councillors to attend an existing forum for all local elected representatives that WHA hosts every three months.
