€10m Shop Street facelift in the pipeline

A €10 million facelift of the greater Shop Street area should be ‘largely completed’ for the start of the city’s stint as European Capital of Culture in 2020, it was confirmed this week.

New pedestrian surfaces will be laid down, modern ‘way-finding’ signage will be put in place, solar waste-bins will be installed, new street furniture is envisaged and the old sewer will be replaced.

City Council Chief Executive, Brendan McGrath, estimates that the entire cost of the project will be in the region of €10m but already he has a nest-egg fund of around €5.4m set aside for the works.

“Shop Street will change dramatically with this, without losing its look or feel,” he said.

Mr McGrath confirmed to city councillors this week that the project would involve extensive consultations with both private traders as well as all the main representative bodies.

Over recent years, the cobblestone surface along the pedestrianised areas of the city has been the source of several insurance claims against the local Council with the uneven and subsiding surface leading to many falls and injuries.

In the past, the Galway City Tribune revealed that over a three-year period, a figure of €5.267m had been paid out in insurance claims relating to the City Council.

According to Brendan McGrath, a figure in the region of €5.4m has already been set aside for the project made up of €2m from City Council funds, €1.6m from an insurance retained business fund and €1.75m from a European fund.

However, he confirmed that the entire cost of the project would be ‘in excess of €10m’ with the bulk of the work to be completed in 2019 before the start of the European Capital of Culture year in 2020.
For more on the city centre revamp plan, see this week’s Galway City Tribune. Buy a digital edition of this week’s paper here, or download the app for Android or iPhone.