Council approves scaled-back plans for Ceannt Station lands

From this week’s Galway City Tribune – Galway City Council has forced developer Gerry Barrett to significantly scale back plans for the regeneration of the Ceannt Station lands – granting permission for only part of proposals to develop the eight-acre plot dubbed ‘Augustine Hill’.

The developer, through his company Edward Capital, has been given the green light to proceed with a reduced scheme which will include a mix of 229 apartments; a 130-bed hotel; a six-screen cinema; restaurants; and a retail and craft food market.

The project involves the creation of 11 new and fully-pedestrianised streets with four public plazas, while the apartments will be spread across nine blocks, with a 21-storey tower at the centre.

The application submitted to City Council in February 2020 sought permission for 404 apartments and a 186-bed hotel. However, planners refused a development of this scale, branding it “contrary to the policies and objectives of the Galway City Development Plan”.

“It is considered that these residential towers, by virtue of their excessive height, scale and massing coupled with their unsatisfactory interrelationship with the balance of the development proposed and their extreme proximity to Forthill Cemetery, cannot sympathetically assimilate into the scheme and will have a detrimental impact on adjoining heritage assets, key views and the character of Galway’s townscape,” stated the planning report.

Some 53 conditions were attached to the decision to grant permission for a scaled-back development, including a requirement to pay the City Council a contribution of just over €4 million to cover the costs of the services which facilitate the development.

A number of blocks proposed by the developer in the planning application were altered by planners, with between two and five floors removed from three of the structures.
This is a shortened preview version of this article. To read the rest of the story, see this week’s Galway City Tribune. You can buy a digital edition HERE.