Compulsory Purchase Orders process for homes on bypass route

Plans for the Galway City outer bypass are to be submitted at the end of the year directly to An Bord Pleanala, while documentation for Compulsory Purchase Orders is also being prepared for homes and land along the route.

The proposed ring road will be a continuation of the M6 motorway at Doughiska and will involve the construction of a new bridge across the Corrib, with the road skirting around Dangan and Glenlo Abbey and eventually hitting the Coast Road at Barna.

The matter was raised at a meeting of Galway County Council this week when it was stated that the €550 million Gort to Tuam motorway premature in the absence of a Galway City outer ring road.

When the new M17/18 motorway is completed, there will be traffic coming into the roundabout at Doughiska from the Gort, Dublin and Tuam directions.

“It will be an absolute nightmare”, declared county councillor Michael ‘Stroke’ Fahy who put down a notice of motion wasking what progress was being made on the Galway outer bypass.

He said that it should proceed as quickly as possible and that its absence was compromising the future viability of the whole county, as the county and city is being “held to ransom”. He added that when the Gort to Tuam motorway was completed, there would be “traffic hell” in the city.

In response to Cllr Fahy, the County Secretary Michael Owens said that work was ongoing on the Galway City Ring Road and that documentation was being prepared along with a process for Compulsory Purchase Orders.

Mr Owens, in a written reply, said that this documentation was programmed to be ready for publication by the end of 2016.

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