The Department of Infrastructure is trying for a second time to submit a planning application to turn a rural silt store into a permanent storage facility.

Infrastructure ministers had originally intended the site at Rockmount, which is near to the government-owned Poortown Quarry outside Peel, to only serve as a temporary place to store potentially contaminated silt that was dredged from Peel’s marina in 2015.

Planning application 20/00837/B was originally submitted in July 2020 when requests for additional information and changes to the proposed works were received.

The DoI said that following a period of consultation with the Environment Directorate at the Department of Environment, Food and Agriculture, a new application (22/00287/B) has now been submitted which addresses the points raised and additional information requested.

In line with the 2020 application, the department said is not seeking to deposit any additional dredged material (meaning silt dredged since 2020) within the facility.

The revised scheme now involves:

– re-profiling the outside face of the retaining embankments in order to improve their long-term stability

– replacing the temporary cap over the dredged spoil with a permanent long-term cap

– installing gas and ground-water boreholes to enable long-term monitoring

The application details the site restoration plan and aftercare, as required under current UK practice for the long-term management of landfill sites, and will allow the site to return to agricultural use.

The DoI said in 2020 that since closing off the rural Rockmount site in 2015, it had ‘quickly became a stable habitat and has continued to be monitored on a regular basis’.

It argued that allowing the material to remain in place ‘would avoid digging up what has become an established meadow, and prevent an increase in heavy traffic while it was moved elsewhere’.

To allow for the original planning application, a compulsory purchase and demolition of a residential house has already been carried out.

A later and separate operation to remove 37,000 tonnes of silt from Peel Marina was completed in spring 2021.

This £6.9m project was beset by delays caused by the covid lockdowns, adding £125,000 to the overall cost.

This material was transported to a temporary pool in a field upstream from the Marina, beyond the power station site.

Consideration is now being given to determine the most suitable final location for permanent storage and monitoring of this potentially contaminated silt, which is classified as being ‘a mixture of inert waste and stable, non-reactive waste’.

The DoI has confirmed that the Rockmount site will not be considered as part of this process.