CITY TRIBUNE
Management at City Hall rule out hiring park rangers
Hiring park ranger-style community wardens this year to maintain and safeguard three city woods after hours and at weekends has been ruled out by management at City Hall.
At a local authority meeting last week, Chief Executive of Galway City Council Brendan McGrath said it would cost at least €320,000 to hire eight new staff to patrol the city’s wooded areas 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
He said it was not budgeted for and hiring park rangers was not included in its strategic plan for this year.
“I can’t make it happen in 2021,” insisted Mr McGrath. But he vowed to report back to city councillors with a plan detailing how the Council might be able to provide more wardens to protect parks in future years.
Director of Services, Dermot Mahon, highlighted a number of potential problems with the proposal but Imelda Byrne, the Fianna Fáil city councillor, received cross-party support from a majority of elected members.
Cllr Byrne’s motion read: “Galway City Council agrees on the need for full-time on-the-grounds wardens seven days a week in the main city parks to ensure that they are safe and of high maintenance for the benefit of the public and of biodiversity.”
She explained that full-time wardens were needed at Terryland Forest Park, Bearna Woods and Merlin Woods.
Cllr Byrne, in introducing the emergency motion, said it was “upsetting” to learn that the Environment Department of the Council had an under-spend of €700,000 last year. She said Galway City Council should follow the lead of Fingal County Council and other local authorities who hire park rangers to patrol parks.
Cllr Frank Fahy (FG) said that the Council needs a team of wardens, working out of office hours. Currently, he said, community wardens work 9am-5pm and there is no cover from 5pm to 9am.
He said it was his understanding that Gardaí were called to Merlin Woods last weekend, after a member of the public reported cars driving in the meadow, but they had not responded over an hour later.
Mayor Mike Cubbard (Ind) said more ‘boots on the ground’ were needed – when staff were appointed to Westside Sports Park, problems with anti-social behaviour disappeared.
Cllr Declan McDonnell (Ind) said he was fully supporting the motion, and asked that the new wardens would cover city playgrounds, also. He said that a fortnight ago, people were partying in Mervue playground until 8am one morning, and left drugs paraphernalia behind.
Cllrs Donal Lyons and Noel Larkin (both Ind) expressed support for the sentiment behind the motion but they said it could have financial implications and a knock-on impact on other recreational and amenity services provided by the Council. They wanted a detailed report on the impact of passing the motion.
The Director with responsibility for parks, Mr Mahon, said it was not just a cost implication and hiring new staff needed to be approved by Government. Additional staff costs were not one-off costs and were recurring.
He said wardens didn’t deal with anti-social behaviour and he asked whether the proponents of the proposal were looking for “security guards”. Park rangers in other parks around the country were supplied by the Office of Public Works, he said, not the local authority.
Mr Mahon said there would be a “health and safety implication” of having staff out 24 hours a day, seven days a week. He said that the cost would be “excessive”, and amount to €300,000-€400,000 annually.
He said it was not clear from the motion whether councillors expected wardens to be based at the three woods or at City Hall.
If it was the former, then they’d need to provide accommodation, including toilets for staff, at the woods; if it was the latter, then City Hall would have to be accessible to staff 24-hours.
In reply, Cllr Mike Crowe (FF) said, “you’d have to wonder why councillors would bother coming up with motions after listening to that response”.
He said that Mr Mahon had spoken for 15 minutes, and 14 and a half of those minutes was negative.
Cllr Crowe said his colleague had put “deep thought” into the proposal, which was “not about whether wardens can get a cup of coffee at midnight”.
Mr McGrath insisted there was no opposition to the motion from management but it couldn’t be implemented this year.
It will be debated again today at a meeting devoted to Notice of Motions.
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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