CITY TRIBUNE
Councillor ruffles feathers over Galway’s Purple Flag status
The renewal of the city’s ‘Purple Flag’ status cost almost €9,000, with questions raised over its benefit to nighttime safety.
The Purple Flag is described as “an international accreditation awarded to cities and towns that meet a standard of excellence in managing the evening and night-time economy.”
Galway City Council, which calls it a “prestigious” award, applied, and received the purple flag in 2015. Documents released to the Galway City Tribune under Freedom of Information (FOI) confirm the City Council spent almost €9,000 to retain the accreditation in 2017.
This included €2,800 “renewal expense”, which is paid to Association of Town and City Management (ATCM), who award the accreditation.
The award was given to Galway City following an overnight assessment of the city centre by two assessors earlier this summer. It means Galway City, “as a Purple Flag accredited area has proven that it is welcoming to everyone, offers safe ways for visitors to travel home after dark and provides a good mix of venues.”
The local authority “celebrated Purple Flag weekend” in early October.
As well as the €2,800 fee to ATCM, to renew the application, the City Council spent a further €4,000 on “advertising and printing of promotional items”. It is understood this includes the purchase of actual purple flags, one of which was flown from the Spanish Arch.
Other costs associated with the Purple Flag include: trade services and other works (€513.24); entertainment and associated expense (€676.46); training – seminar and conference (€575); and professional fees and expense (€382.75).
The website of the Purple Flag scheme lists “lower crime and anti-social behaviour” among the benefits of attaining accreditation, which is held by 18 other towns and cities in Ireland. However, not everyone is convinced of the merits of the scheme. Fianna Fáil councillor Mike Crowe said the Purple Flag was “all a bit fluffy” and “great in principle” but hasn’t made the city any safer.
“It’s not clear to me what benefit the city gets out of the Purple Flag. I don’t know what it does. I know what they tell us it’s supposed to do; it’s awarded to towns and cities that are safe and vibrant. But I don’t see how by being awarded the Purple Flag Galway City is any safer,” said Cllr Crowe.
“Take the Blue Flag. Ballyloughane doesn’t have a Blue Flag so I know that, according to the authorities, it’s not safe to swim there and if I want to swim I go out to Salthill where the Blue Flag beach is, or I take the risk and swim in Ballyloughane anyway.
“With the Purple Flag, I can’t see one thing that has changed since Galway joined the scheme that has made the city centre any safer. The only thing I know about the Purple Flag scheme is that purple flags have gone up around the city since it was renewed.
“I’m not being funny about it, but the only place I’ve heard the Purple Flag being mentioned is at City Hall. I haven’t heard any clubs or residents or people on the street or any business people mention or talk about the Purple Flag.
“I’ve never gone travelling to a city on the basis of whether or not they have a purple flag and I’ve never heard of any tourists using it as criteria for choosing where they’ll go. And I’ve never heard of businesses using the purple flag to decide if they’ll set-up business in a town or city.
“It’s not a lot of money to be spending in the greater scheme of things, but at the same time that’s €10,000 or so that you could be spending on other areas, such as CCTV that actually might improve safety in the city,” added Cllr Crowe.
A spokesperson for the City Council said the Purple Flag initiative was a positive one, that promotes the night-time economy. The spokesperson said that the initiative has promoted collaboration and cooperation between a number of agencies including Gardaí, City Council, businesses including security companies.
He added that €9,000 spent on the Purple Flag was relatively more cost effective than CCTV.
From the Galway City Tribune – An impassioned plea for a ‘masterplan’ that would guide Galway City into the future has been made in the Dáil. Galway West TD Catherine Connolly stated this week that there needed to be an all-inclusive approach with “vision and leadership” in order to build a sustainable city.
Deputy Connolly spoke at length at the crisis surrounding traffic and housing in Galway city and said that not all of the blame could be laid at the door of the local authority.
She said that her preference would be the provision of light rail as the main form of public transport, but that this would have to be driven by the government.
“I sat on the local council for 17 years and despaired at all of the solutions going down one road, metaphorically and literally. In 2005 we put Park & Ride into the development plan, but that has not been rolled out. A 2016 transport strategy was outdated at the time and still has not been updated.
“Due to the housing crisis in the city, a task force was set up in 2019. Not a single report or analysis has been published on the cause of the crisis,” added Deputy Connolly.
She then referred to a report from the Land Development Agency (LDA) that identified lands suitable for the provision of housing. But she said that two-thirds of these had significant problems and a large portion was in Merlin Park University Hospital which, she said, would never have housing built on it.
In response, Minister Simon Harris spoke of the continuing job investment in the city and also in higher education, which is his portfolio.
But turning his attention to traffic congestion, he accepted that there were “real issues” when it came to transport, mobility and accessibility around Galway.
“We share the view that we need a Park & Ride facility and I understand there are also Bus Connects plans.
“I also suggest that the City Council reflect on her comments. I am proud to be in a Government that is providing unparalleled levels of investment to local authorities and unparalleled opportunities for local authorities to draw down,” he said.
Then Minister Harris referred to the controversial Galway City Outer Ring Road which he said was “struck down by An Bord Pleanála”, despite a lot of energy having been put into that project.
However, Deputy Connolly picked up on this and pointed out that An Bord Pleanála did not say ‘No’ to the ring road.
“The High Court said ‘No’ to the ring road because An Bord Pleanála acknowledged it failed utterly to consider climate change and our climate change obligations.
“That tells us something about An Bord Pleanála and the management that submitted such a plan.”
In the end, Minister Harris agreed that there needed to be a masterplan for Galway City.
“I suggest it is for the local authority to come up with a vision and then work with the Government to try to fund and implement that.”
The new Salmon Weir pedestrian and cycle bridge will be officially opened to the public next Friday, May 26.
Work on the €10 million bridge got underway in April 2022, before the main structure was hoisted into place in early December.
A lunchtime tape-cutting ceremony will take place on Friday, as the first pedestrians and cyclists traverse the as-yet-unnamed bridge.
The Chief Executive of Galway City Council, Brendan McGrath, previously said the bridge, once opened, would remove existing conflicts between pedestrians, cyclists and traffic “as well as facilitating the Cross-City Link public transport corridor over the existing 200-year-old bridge”.
The naming of the new bridge has been under discussion by the Council’s Civic Commemorations Committee since late last year.
One name that has been in the mix for some time is that of the first woman in Europe to graduate with an engineering degree – Alice Perry.
Ms Perry, who was from Wellpark, graduated from Queen’s College Galway (now University of Galway) in 1906. The university’s engineering building is named in her honour.
The bridge was built by Jons Civil Engineering firm in County Meath and was assembled off-site before being transported to Galway. Funding for the project was provided in full by the National Transport Authority and the European Regional Development Fund.
(Photo: Sheila Gallagher captured the city’s new pedestrian footbridge being raised on the south side of the Salmon Weir Bridge in December. It will officially open next Friday, May 26).
From the Galway City Tribune – Minister of State for Local Government and Planning, Kieran O’Donnell was labelled a “disgrace” for overturning councillors’ decisions to rezone land in the new City Development Plan.
Minister O’Donnell (pictured) confirmed in a letter to Council Chief Executive Brendan McGrath last week that he was reversing 25 material alternations made by councillors to the CDP 2023-29. He made the decision on the advice of Office of Planning Regulator (OPR).
Minister O’Donnell directed that 14 land parcels that were subject to land-use zoning changes by councillors as part of the Material Alterations to the Draft CDP should be reversed.
He directed that a further 11 land parcels in the city should become “unzoned”.
The Minister found that the CDP had not been made in a manner consistent with recommendations of the OPR, which required specific changes to the plan to ensure consistency with the national planning laws and guidelines.
At last week’s Council meeting Cllr Eddie Hoare (FG) asked for clarity on the process by which councillors could rezone the lands that had been changed by the Minister’s direction.
Cllr Declan McDonnell said, “What he [Minister O’Donnell] has done is an absolute disgrace”.
And he asked: “Do we have to have another development plan meeting to deal with it?”
Both Cllrs Hoare and McDonnell wondered what would become of the lands that were rezoned or unzoned by the ministerial direction.
Mr McGrath said the Council had put forward an argument in favour of retaining the material alterations in the plan, but ultimately the Minister sided with OPR.
He said if councillors want to make alterations to the new plan, they could go through the process of making a material alteration but this was lengthy.
The Save Roscam Peninsula campaign welcomed the Minister’s decision.
In a statement to the Galway City Tribune, it said the direction would mean the Roscam village area on the Roscam Peninsula will be unzoned and a number of land parcels would revert back to agriculture/high amenity.
A spokesperson for the campaign said: “the material alterations made by city councillors following lobbying by developers continued the long-standing practice of councillors facilitating a developer-led plan rather than an evidence- and policy-based plan that meets the needs of the city.
“The Minister’s direction is an important step in restoring confidence in the planning system. It is clear from the City Council’s own evidence on future housing projections that there was no requirement to zone these lands for residential purposes in order to meet the needs of the targeted population increase up to 2029,” the spokesperson added.
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