Join us at “Unplug Newmarket” from Friday 12th December to Monday 15th December. A fundraising winter fest including music, fun, chats and more. All events hosted in our lovely town of Newmarket.
Your support would be greatly appreciated in our fight against this largescale BESS.
Make Observations
Everyone is now invited to submit an observation on our appeal to An Coimisiún Pleanála. You can submit an observation even if you did not submit an objection to Cork County Council. You have until the 15th September 2025 to submit this observation. The following are the steps on how to do so. We will leave copies of the below instructions and some guidelines in the post office, Newmarket should anyone like a copy. We will also host a session in An Cultúrlann on Thursday 4th September from 6pm to 9pm should anyone require assistance with this process.
By post
- Post to: The Secretary, An Coimisiún Pleanála, 64 Marlborough Street, Dublin 1 D01 V902
- Payment can be made by cheque, bankers draft or postal order
Online
- Link: https://online.pleanala.ie/en-ie/planning-appeals/observation
- Use the online form or upload a saved document
- Pay by debit card or credit card
Requirements to be included
- You need to include your observation/submission in writing (typed or handwritten), including reasons and arguments
- State clearly your own name and postal address
- Include the case number PL04.323401 or the county council ref 24/05426 or the name and location of the site
- Ensure the case number or council reference plus your name is the name of your document if uploading online (e.g. 323401 – Jane Doe)
- Pay the fee – €50
- The deadline date is 15 September 2025 at 5.30pm
–
–
PUBLIC MEETING
We’re holding a public meeting on the Tuesday 12th August 8pm. We will update everyone about what is happening and what you can do. Please spread the word. It’s very important. We still have time to stop this.
Our current press release
“Completely Unsuitable”: Cork County Council Approves Lithium Battery Farm in Heart of Rural Newmarket
Locals say development puts agriculture, environment, and safety at risk — public meeting called as campaign escalates
The Newmarket Environmental Protection Group has condemned Cork County Council’s decision to approve a large lithium-ion battery storage facility in the heart of rural Newmarket, calling it a direct threat to the local environment, public health, and farming life.
The facility — proposed by French energy company NEOEN — will not be sited in an industrial area, but in a scenic and historic location featured in Alice Taylor’s best-selling memoir To School Through the Fields. The proposed site sits above the town, beside a 1,000-year-old graveyard, and just a few hundred metres from a Blue Flag river, the Dalua.
“This battery farm poses a serious risk to the land, the water, and the people,” said Maura Cronin O’Connor, spokesperson for the Newmarket Environmental Protection Group. “It’s completely out of place in a rural, residential, and agricultural setting like this.”
The Dalua is a protected waterway that supports local biodiversity and agriculture downstream. Campaigners are warning that any leak, fire or containment failure from the lithium-ion facility could have devastating consequences for farmland and water quality.
The site is also near a primary school, a health centre, and a nursing home, with narrow rural access via a 300-year-old humpback bridge. The town itself is already a traffic bottleneck, and locals fear emergency services may not be able to reach the site quickly if a fire or chemical incident occurred — a real concern with battery technology known for thermal runaway and toxic smoke risks.
The original planning application was submitted in 2024 and triggered months of public mobilisation, including large public meetings, hundreds of planning objections, and a protest at County Hall last June. Despite these efforts — and in the face of strong, organised local opposition — NEOEN was granted an extension to submit further documentation. Planning permission was ultimately approved.
“We’ve been ignored,” said Maura Cronin O’Connor. “But we’re not giving up. We intend to fight this to the bitter end.”
A public meeting will be held on Tuesday 12th August at 8pm in the Cultúrlann, Newmarket, Co. Cork to update the community and organise next steps. All are welcome.
“This is not a rejection of renewable energy,” she added. “We support the transition to green technology. But this is the wrong project in the wrong place. If this can happen here — beside homes, farms, a school, and a protected river — it can happen anywhere.”
A BITTER BETRAYAL BY CORK COUNTY COUNCIL
Who owns our area? Is it the hundreds of us who want to protect it from a massive battery farm that we don’t want or can never accept? No. The people who can give away Newmarket are your local County Councillors and politicians..
All this time, we played their game because they said that’s how we’d beat this.. They talked BS at our meetings. Promised to change the zoning. Told us to put in objections. When we protested, they inserted themselves to get their photos in local press. They read out our proposal at a Council meetings.. They met with us and said they’d “work in the background”
Let it be a lesson for the other groups around the county. Do not deal with Cork County Councillors or TDs. They are out to deceive, and they serve the interests of big business before you.
We’d ask anyone who supports us not to interact with any local politicians until this is reversed. You know who they are. There’s one in Newmarket, two from Kiskeam and one from Laharn. Ignore them if you can. We certainly will.
PROTEST ON TUESDAY JUNE 24TH
Cork’s rural communities are under threat from unregulated renewable projects.
We’re coming together with other communities facing the same plight, forming the Cork Communities Alliance for Change — peacefully, as neighbours — to say ENOUGH.
Come stand with us Tuesday 24th June, 9AM, outside Cork County Hall Cork.
Bring your family & friends. Together we are strong.
The Alliance for Change group has put together an informative flyer about the current situation facing many areas in Cork and all over.
Countdown to Deadline
[Feb 2025]
We’re expecting to get a verdict around St Patrick’s Day. We will see if Cork County Council are going to go with the hundreds who have objected to or are they going to with the big business French profiteers who don’t give a damn about Newmarket.
This website hasn’t been updated since last September so here’s a few things that happened.
Letter to the Editor – members letter published in the Examiner
Major fire – lithium-ion battery factory in Claregalway explodes
Signs of Resistance – Posters to keep the Battery Energy System in our minds
Planners Seek Clarity
UPDATE: We found out that the County Planners have written to Neoen – the French company planning to battery storage site in Curraduff.. The planners have asked Neoen to clarify certain technical points and make more documents to support. They have given them six months to respond.
From our perspective this is the weakest response we could have gotten. The county planners never said they were opposed to the battery, they never mentioned that local residents are entirely resistant and the six months is surely to be a way to avoid the issue affecting the election. FFS we just landed over 200 objections on the planning office desk.. It doesn’t matter what documents Neoen want to make, the battery isn’t wanted by anyone. Cork County Council please wake up!
You can find the article about the county planners’ letter at independent.ie.
VERY IMPORTANT: If you lodged an objection you will receive a receipt in the post in the coming weeks. If this case goes to an Bord Pleanala we will need that receipt.. So when you get it back in the post, please drop it to Newmarket Post Office or get in contact with us here or on the website.
Our Group
We are a community group setup with the sole purpose of stopping a private energy company’s sneaky construction of a Battery Energy Storage System site on a hill next to our town. Our group was formed after a public meeting attended by 300 concerned locals.
We are not against green technologies, we just believe that it is reckless to put a giant lithium-ion battery which is a known fire and pollution risk where:
- The prevailing wind blows straight over the site into Newmarket [population of 1,000].
- The nearest public buildings are a national school, a health centre and a nursing home.
- The site is next to residential dwellings and farms.
- Newmarket is a bottleneck for traffic and could never accommodate an orderly evacuation or large emergency response.
- The site is next to a watercourse that feeds into the Dalua river only a few hundred feet away. The Dalua is one of the main headwaters of the Blackwater river.
This website is here to give information and to help people focus on preventing this potentially lethal business venture from destroying our town and it’s environment. If you are in doubt about what we are doing just google “battery fire”..
Please join the mailing list if you want updates about how to help.