CITY TRIBUNE
Major employers support plans for new ‘urban quarter’ at Galway Docks
Some of the biggest employers in Galway – including Medtronic, Cisco and Hewlett Packard Enterprise – have come out in support of the plans for a €100 million ‘urban quarter’ development at Galway Docks.
The ‘Bonham Quay’ project – which would create office space for 2,600 workers – has also garnered support from the likes of NUI Galway, Galway Chamber, Galway City Business Association, Galway Technology Centre, WestBIC, Galway City Innovation District and Insight (the National Research Centre for Big Data) and the Harbour Company.
The companies and agencies all believe the project will address the chronic lack of ‘Grade A’ office space in the city and attract more Foreign Direct Investment – by creating 26,000 square metres of office space in four blocks overlooking the Docks on the former Topaz oil tanks site.
However, the plans have also met with objections from several leading names in the city’s arts community, including former senior figures in Macnas and Galway Arts Festival.
Gerard Kilcommins, Vice President of Medtronic – Galway’s largest private sector employer with more than 3,500 staff –described Bonham Quay as “key for the future development of Galway City”.
Mr Kilcommins, who is also the Chair of Action Plan for Jobs (West Region), said: “There is a distinct lack of office space in Galway City, so this, coupled with the quality of life offering available for people here, will position the city well in this time of competitiveness considering the changing political environment.”
His comments were echoed by Pat Hession, Site Director with Cisco in Oranmore said the project would attract further FDI to Galway and drive employment in the region.
Entrepreneur Barry O’Sullivan of RTÉ’s Dragons’ Den, said his company, Altocloud (based in the PorterShed in Eyre Square) employs 25 highly-skilled people, and he intends to grow the company to employ hundreds of people.
Mr O’Sullivan said the company will soon outgrow the PorterShed, and Bonham Quay is an ideal location.
Maurice O’Gorman of the Galway City Innovation District, which operates the PorterShed, said: “Having opened in May 2016, we now have over 20 resident companies employing close to 100 directly. We have held over 100 events with over the 2,500 people in attendance.
Paraic Breathnach, founder of Macnas and Director of Galway Arts Centre, submitted the following objection to planners: “In my view, the cultural space allocation contravenes the spirit of the City Plan. The building is too big. There are not enough homes. It is a poor design.”
Production designer and Macnas co-founder Tom Conroy – who won an Emmy award for his work on the hit TV show The Tudors – told the Council that while he welcomes the vitalisation of the Docks, the Bonham Quay plans “fall very short of doing justice to the potential of this setting”.
He said the sheer scale of the development – 118 feet high – would lead to a precedent for the rest of the Docks and for Ceannt Station. Mr Conroy said that not having a healthy 30% residential mix would be a tragically missed opportunity to address the city’s housing shortage.
Mr Conroy – who previously served on the board of Galway Arts Festival – added that 75 square metres of cultural space was “derisory” and described it as a “token nod” to the Development Plan.
Mr Conroy’s objection was supported in a separate submission from Trish Forde, former Artistic Director with the Arts Festival.
For extensive coverage of the submissions, 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.
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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