Bypass route justification report due in weeks

The route selection report on the proposed new city bypass is set to be published in mid-August.

The detailed report, which will run to several thousand pages, will outline all the information that has been compiled and used to date in the selection of the emerging preferred route, which was published in May.

It will include all sorts of environmental information, public consultation, logs of traffic patterns, constraints along the routes examined and so on.

Michael Timmins, senior road engineer with Galway County Council, the agency leading the project on behalf of the National Roads Authority and Galway City Council, confirmed it would be published in a few weeks.

“We’re still working away to a schedule. The route selection report will be published in mid-August. It’s a very substantial document and will have thousands of pages and appendices. It is a detailed document of all the information about how we got to this point in the process of route selection,” said Mr Timmins.

He explained that the County Council, and consultants Arup, are on course to publishing the Compulsory Purchase Orders (CPOs), Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) and Natura Impact Statement (NIS) in Spring 2016.

Once the CPOs, EIS and NIS are published, it is then a matter for An Bórd Pleanála, he said.

“We are continuing our work. We are following the statutory process . . . we are on course for CPOs, NIS and EIS to be published in the Spring of next year,” he said.

Mr Timmins said the Council was keeping up its end of the bargain and was on schedule with its body of work but he acknowledged once it goes to An Bórd Pleanála it could be delayed by all sorts of issues, including possible legal challenges and a lack of funding.

Mr Timmins said that the Council is still engaging with landowners and property owners along the emerging preferred route.

The road footprint is being tweaked still he said, in order to facilitate those affected. “Even this week we had two or three landowners in to us. It’s not going to be moved 500 metres but we are facilitating moving slightly in one direction or the other to minimise the impact on people. We might change a junction or move it one way or the other to limit the impact on those affected but it has to be within road design guidelines because we cannot compromise on safety,” he said.

Meanwhile, some 130 people, including around 20 politicians, – and not 500 or 600 people as had been claimed – attended a meeting in the Clayton Hotel last week where opposition to the road and possible alternatives were aired.

Following the public meeting, representatives from Galway N6 Action Group, and groups from Barna and Castlegar held a meeting where it was agreed to ‘step up’ plans to co-ordinate their opposition to the road. They are planning another public meeting in September.

Independent Senator Fidelma Healy Eames issued a statement this wek to say that the emerging preferred route had to be ‘signed off’ by the Minister for Transport, Paschal Donohoe before it is submitted to An Bórd Pleanála.

However, the Department of Transport midweek appeared to throw cold water on this suggestion.