Climate expert warns Salthill Promenade ‘on last legs’

Salthill is at risk of having its iconic Promenade fall into wrack and ruin if immediate repairs are not carried out. That’s according to Dr Eugene Farrell, a Geography lecturer in NUIG.

At a talk entitled, ‘Coastal Management Strategies in Galway; Present and Future Challenges, Will the City Drown?’ Farrell stated that there are a number of decisions that are coming down the pipeline for Galway city.

“Our Prom is actually on its last legs, it is severely damaged underneath. What you see, the slabs, they’re severely eroded and in need of immediate repair.

“One of the options for Galway is that, and we’ve seen Salthill flood, we need to fix the Prom, but should we also raise it? And then the question is, if we raise it, by how much?’’

It should come as no surprise that structures like the prom have taken a battering in recent years due to the number of storms hitting Ireland. An EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) report has said that by 2060, storms will increase by as much as 15%.

He pointed out that the storms that hit the country in recent years are, ‘’one in a hundred year events and they’re happening in clusters.’’

For more on this story, see this week’s Galway City Tribune