Poor Summer blamed for problem of blocked gulleys

Our dank summer has been blamed for a higher than normal amount of roadside gulleys being blocked up with dirt and vegetation over recent weeks.

The City Council have received complaints about the blocked gulleys and they plan to undertake a cleaning programme in the next few weeks.

“A lot of dirt and water has been flowing into the gulleys over the course of our wet summer and we do acknowledge that this has caused a particular problem.

“We have a plan in place to deal with the issue over the coming weeks but there is certainly extra work involved this autumn in freeing them up,” said a spokesman for the City Council.

A city resident, Peter Strange, who contacted the City Council on the issue of the blocked gulleys, said that the problem was spread right across the city

“I have taken photographs of the blocked-up gulleys on the Tuam Road, Quincentenary Bridge, Seamus Quirke Road, Rahoon Road and the Prom – essentially all the major roads in the city.

“The images clearly show drains that are blocked and weeds that are growing within them – many other drains are blocked as badly as these, but are not as easy to photograph,” said Mr. Strange.

He wanted to know what procedures the City Council had to deal with the problem of the blocked drains – Mr. Strange said that the problem had ‘clearly been ignored’ for a long time.

A very wet July that delivered 157mms. (nearly 6.2 inches) in the city, according to the NUI Galway Weather Station, did a lot of the damage while the deluges of last weekend gave us 90.6mms. of rainfall so far in September.

“We are aware of the issue with the gulleys, and work on cleaning them will be taking place over the coming weeks. The wet summer has added just that bit more to the workload,” said the spokesman for the City Council.

“We have a plan in place to deal with the issue over the coming weeks but there is certainly extra work involved this autumn in freeing them up,” the spokesperson added.