€15m project could blitz shops out of existence

The development of a €15m Tesco store – practically across the road from a long-standing Dunnes Stores development in Westside – could have a devastating impact on existing businesses in nearby suburbs, An Bord Pleanala’s oral hearing was told.

RGDATA, an umbrella group representing independent retailers in Ireland, was among a large number of parties on both sides that made submissions over three days in relation to the controversial granting of permission for the development along one of the City’s main east-west arteries.

Owner, and former Mayor of Galway, Michéal Ó hUiginn, had sought to demolish an existing premises and construct a 9,369 sq m retail unit on a 2.54ha (6.1 acres) site between the Seamus Quirke Road and Rahoon Road in the Westside area of the City.

While the planning application was granted by Galway City Council earlier this year, it was subject to 30 conditions – the applicant has appealed two of these, one of which is a stipulation that a public road be built in a north-south direction linking the Rahoon and Seamus Quirke Roads. There were further appeals made to An Bord Pleanala from residential, environmental, business, and other affected groups.

Yesterday’s third day of the oral hearing at the Westwood Hotel into the proposed development heard that the shopping complex in Westside could potentially employ up to 200 people, but the Seamus Quirke Road would not cope with the additional demand.

Experts for the applicant, Michéal Ó hUiginn, had disputed this claim, as had Galway City Council – who had granted permission for the development in June, albeit with 30 conditions.

Chartered engineer, Eoin Reynolds, said that the fears expressed in relation to traffic generated by proposed supermarkets of this size were common and understandable, but that once the projects were finished there was “not another murmur… You’d get the impression that we are building Disneyland.” He strongly disputed the figure put forward by RGDATA’s Jerry Barnes, adding that it was very inappropriate and inflammatory for him to claim that this development would generate up to 1,300 ‘trips’ per hour along the Seamus Quirke Road at peak times.

Mr Barnes had said that every evening the Seamus Quirke Road was ‘bumper-to-bumper’ from the roundabout on its east side all the way to Westside Shopping Centre. He said that to argue the figure of how many would use the road following construction “was to completely miss the point – the link is at capacity.”

For more on this story, see the Galway City Tribune.