One way you can show your support for the residents of Tullig and Reenascreena in our fight to prevent West Cork Distillers building a huge industrial warehousing complex in our small rural community is to write to your local councillors.

It is highly likely that West Cork Distillers are lobbying councillors to approve their application. So we need to do a bit of lobbying of our own. While Tullig and Reenascreena Community Group is contacting councillors directly, the more voters who express their disapproval of the proposed development, the more likely councillors are to listen.

Suggested Email Text

The following is a sample email that includes our main objections (as summarised in the conclusion of the comprehensive group submission we sent in to the planning department. Copy and paste this text into your own email and edit as necessary.

A Chara,

I am writing to express concerns about a proposal by West Cork Distillers to develop an industrial scale whiskey warehousing facility on unzoned agricultural land at Tullig, near Reenascreena in West Cork (Planning Application 21458).

This development proposal does not just concern the residents and community in the immediate vicinity. The inappropriate sequestration of parcels of rural land for industrial development represents a tangible threat to rural life across County Cork and beyond.

Some specific concerns relating to the Tullig/Reenascreena development include.

• The local road infrastructure (L4239 and L4241) is completely unsuitable for increased use by heavy goods vehicles.
• There is potential for increased flooding, particularly in Connonagh, but also at other sites locally, because natural surface water attenuation provided by the peat bog would be removed during development, and replaced with vast artificial surfaces that increased surface water runoff.
• There’s a genuine concern that allowing an industrial development like this one in Tullig/Reenascreena will not just irrevocably alter the appearance of the landscape, but will erode the intangible underlying fabric of the rural community.
• The development would have a radical and negative visual impact on the rural landscape. There is no characteristic of industrial warehousing units that allow them to sit harmoniously in a landscape of “Rolling Intimate Mosaic Farmland”.
• Granting permission for such a development sets a dangerous precedent. It would give a green light to profiteering industrialists, prompting them to buy up low-cost agricultural land to satisfy their industrial warehousing needs. Such development adds nothing to the immediate local economy and serves to erode the core values that underpin rural Irish communities.  
• A substantial proportion of the site is peat bog, and supports much higher levels of biodiversity, and a different range of species, than surrounding areas of improved grassland. At a time when we face the dual crises of climate change and biodiversity loss, we should fight to retain even small fragments of habitat that help address both.
• The proposed development would impose a significant, multi-faceted burden on local residents, spanning community, landscape, infrastructure, agriculture, property, amenity and more, while delivering no tangible benefit.

I would ask you to please familiarise yourself with the case by visiting the community website at savetullig.com, and would urge you to vote against what I believe constitutes a dangerous precedent for rural communities across County Cork when this planning application comes before the Council.

Is mise le meas,

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