Council urged to consult public on Blackrock facelift proposal

From this week’s Galway City Tribune – Swimmers and users of Blackrock Tower in Salthill should not be excluded from plans to revamp the iconic landmark, a former mayor has said.

Councillor Níall McNelis pleaded with Galway City Council to carry out an extensive public consultation process before it embarks on a planned refurbishment of the tower in the coming weeks.

The Council has had to re-advertise its tender for consultants interested in carrying out design work – it had no response at all to its first tender advertisement before Christmas.

Blackrock – currently closed due to Covid-19 lockdown restrictions – is in line for a revamp, to make it more ‘user friendly’, according to the Council.

Previous proposals for an overhaul of the popular swimming area were met with a wave of opposition from local residents, and users, who claimed the changes would have been destructive.

At public meetings in summer 2017, locals and other users of the amenity, said that the proposed changes would be “destructive to the nature of the entire area”, and have an “adverse impact”.

One particular gripe was the amount of hand-railing that was planned to be installed – users complained that it was excessive and took away from the open nature of the amenity. The public was also very critical of the public consultation process, with claims that the views of the public were not taken into consideration.

This week, Cllr McNelis urged City Hall not to repeat the mistakes of that process.
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.