€2m plan for ‘badly-needed’ resurfacing of Galway’s pedestrian zone

Replacing Shop Street’s crooked cobbles is a priority project to be progressed in 2017.

The local authority’s top official wants repaving works on Galway’s famous pedestrian thoroughfare to  begin by the end of next year.

City Council Chief Executive Brendan McGrath admits he doesn’t have the estimated €2 million needed to take up the old cobbles and put in a new safer surface.

But he is accumulating a war-chest to be used to draw-down matching funding from central Government to carry out the works, which he says are “absolutely necessary and a priority”.

In an exclusive interview with Galway City Tribune, Mr McGrath said: “We badly need to re-do some of the city centre streets and surfaces, and Shop Street is an obvious example of that. To do Shop Street properly, obviously we will be putting it out to tender, but you’d have very little change from €2 million.

“I have started to put a kitty of money together. I’ve assembled €300,000 to date, and I’m hoping to put another €150,000 into the kitty by the end of this year.

“The problem is, you might be able to do it in two phases, but clearly to do it, you would at least need half of the money upfront. If I have matching funding in a kitty, I can go to Government and say ‘look, this badly needs doing. I have x, will you give me x plus y?’”

Last year, this newspaper revealed how the uneven surface was creating a new ‘compo culture’. Over three years some €5.267 million compensation was paid out by IPB Insurance for claims relating to Galway City.

That total included €1.029 million in 2012; €2.263 million in 2013; and €1.975 million last year.

Mr McGrath this week acknowledged the new surface “would certainly be cost effective”.

For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.