Fingal refuses Manna permission to continue flying drones from base in Coolmine

In another setback for the drone delivery company Manna, Fingal County Council has refused it permission to keep flying from a base at Coolmine Industrial Estate in Dublin 15. 

On 30 September, Manna applied for “retention” permission to keep flying from the base there. That’s like asking forgiveness if you didn’t ask permission in the first place.

“Our client is currently operating a drone delivery service from this location,” the planning application says. 

Manna wants to “continue the operation of its aerial delivery hub maintaining hours of 9am to 9pm, seven days a week”, serving an area within a 3km radius, it says. 

The drones take off from Coolmine, cruise at about 65 metres to where the customer has asked for their delivery, drops down lower, hovers above the delivery site, lower the package to the ground, and then return to base.

One of the main issues residents have raised in objecting to Manna’s drone operations has been noise, and that was the key issue here as well.

In response to queries sent Thursday, including whether it will appeal Fingal’s decision to An Coimisiún Pleanála, a Manna spokesperson provided a statement that did not directly address that. 

“Manna continues to operate from Blanchardstown and employs 50 staff living in the area, out of its 180-person workforce in Ireland,” the statement said. 

“It has served roughly 80,000 people in Dublin 15 since commencing operations in the area in 2024,” it said.

Manna’s noise assessment

In November, the council asked for further information on Manna’s retention application – crucially it asked for “a comprehensive Noise Impact Assessment”.  

In response, Manna submitted a 36-page noise impact assessment. 

There are two landing pads at the Coolmine base, it says. Between April 2025 and March 2026, Saturday was the base’s busiest day, with an average of 26 flights a day and a maximum of 42 flights per day, it says. 

When cruising at 50 metres, a Manna drone sounds at 60 decibels for a listener on the ground, said an IAA official in May 2024. When lower for delivery, the sound is about 65 decibels, he said. Manna’s website says similar. 

But the noise assessment Manna commissioned for this planning application found noise levels from drones a bit higher than that.

It found Manna drone noise levels in transit at 66 “Average LAmax dB”, with “LAmax” identifying “the loudest moment of an operation”, which “is useful for describing audibility and short-duration prominence”.

And when the drones reached their destination and did their delivery, the document found noise at that point was 78 average LAmax dB.

Still, the report found that, averaged out over time, basically, these noise levels don’t really stand out against existing ambient noise levels. 

For transit, the predicted noise level averaged over 12 hours, “is substantially less than the existing ambient noise at the quietest NSL [noise sensitive location], resulting in imperceptible or insignificant change”, it says.

On delivery, “the predicted maximum level is within the range of short‑duration maximum noise events already occurring in the receiving environment due to local traffic,” it says. 

Local reactions

The idea that drones do not create a significant amount of noise, “From my perspective this is completely untrue,” wrote Angela Dunne, with an address in Dublin 15, in a submission to the council about the planning application. 

“I live on a quiet cul-de-sac and these drones are significantly noisier than any passing car, which is primarily those of residents,” she wrote.

Greg and Bozena Dubiel, also with an address in Dublin 15, also took issue with the noise generated by the drones.

“It is important to note that the drone deliveries always intensify at the very times people want to relax and use their outdoor spaces: Saturdays, Sundays and evenings, especially when the weather is nice,” their submission said.

A submission from “Schaarschmidt Family”, also in Dublin 15, suggests that a relatively small number of customers are impacting a large number of their neighbours. 

“A single drone may overfly 300 properties for a single delivery creating noise pollution along its outbound and return paths,” their submission says.

On the other hand, the Manna spokesperson provided a spreadsheet of what he said were “customer feedback messages”.

"It means weekend coffee and donut is dropped in our back garden, leaving us space to chill and have family time without having to leave the house, it's a family weekend treat,” said one (there are no names attached).

“We have young kids and Manna is an essential time saver at weekends. It also teaches them about innovation,” says another. “Btw our neighbours lawnmowers and pressure washers are louder and last longer.”

“I live in the flight path of the drones and I would see them coming and going all day but it’s like the airplanes – you get used to it,” says a third.

Council’s response

The council’s Air and Noise Unit reviewed the Manna-commissioned noise impact assessment, and Fingal’s planners found the document lacking in several respects.

For example, the study used 2014 guidelines for environmental noise assessment, from what was then known as the Institute for Environmental Management and Assessment (IEMA), in the UK. 

But these “criteria assume that any additional noise being introduced is materially similar to the existing soundscape”, Fingal’s response to the Manna-commissioned noise impact assessment (NIA) says.

“This is not true for Manna drone noise assessment, as the current soundscape is dominated by road traffic, and drones are known to exhibit a vastly different acoustic character to road traffic noise,” it says.

Also, “The NIA assessment does not appear to have considered the cumulative noise impacts of the simultaneous operation of the two Manna delivery hubs at Coolmine and Blanchardstown. This is particularly important for areas and communities that are serviced by both drone delivery hubs,” it says.

On 19 May 2026, Fingal County Council refused permission, saying that the NIA “does not provide sufficient evidence to robustly determine that adverse noise effects associated with the aerial delivery hub can be avoided”. 

“In the absence of sufficient evidence, the aerial delivery hub by virtue of its operation results in serious noise pollution,” the council found. 

Approving the retention permission “will set an inappropriate precedent for other similar forms of development”, the council found. 

“The development is therefore contrary to the proper planning and sustainable development of the area and in addition to being prejudicial to public health,” it said. 

The planning permission for the other base in Dublin 15, Manna’s larger, busier spot one at Blanchardstown Shopping Centre, was granted on 22 August 2023 for three years. So, ending about three months from now. 

The Manna spokesperson didn’t directly respond to a query as to whether there is a plan to apply for planning permission to extend its operations there.