Double blow for landowners along rejected bypass route

More than 240 landowners, whose property was located along the ‘old’ Galway City Outer Bypass route, east of the River Corrib, have been scarred and stung by the process.

The lives of those 240 landowners, mostly in the surrounds of Menlo, were put on hold for close-on two decades. Worse still, they were hit with a double financial whammy.

Firstly the landowners did not get paid from the State for their lands because the Compulsory Purchase Orders (CPOs) collapsed once the route was rejected in the courts.

The ‘old’ route is now freed up since it has been removed from the Galway City Development plan in January.

But landowners have lost out substantially on the potential return in the meantime – they were unable to sell when prices were high during the economic boom and their lands are now worth a fraction of those peak prices.

Galway County Council senior engineer, Michael Timmins, agreed that it was a “cruel” predicament the 240 landowners faced.

Mr Timmins is advancing the project for a new bypass route, which includes six possible routes, five of which are new.

“It has been an incredibly difficult and angst-ridden process. A lot of people have had their lives effectively put on hold for the past 10 to 15 years. That’s why we hope to move this (new bypass process) forward as quickly as possible to ensure that whatever new route comes forward is robust enough to withstand whatever legal challenges it faces,” he said.

He said that the 240 landowners that had an expectation of CPO compensation will not now be compensated.

“No CPOs were paid. Around 240 landowners on the old scheme would have been informed that An Bórd Pleanála had approved the CPO but unfortunately the CPO was never activated. Their difficulty is that the law as it stands does not allow for any compensation under such circumstances,” said Mr Timmins.

Scores of landowners on the west of the Corrib were in a similar predicament in that their land was frozen but they were never actually formally issued with CPOs and so had less of an expectation of being compensated. Their lives were also put on hold, he acknowledged.

Which of the Galway City Bypass proposed routes do you prefer?