CITY TRIBUNE
Progress on ‘Kingston’ recreation and sports facility
An application for planning permission to proceed with long-planned sports and recreation facilities at the ‘Kingston lands’ in Knocknacarra will be made in the first half of 2020.
A spokesperson for Galway City Council confirmed that an engineer has been appointed with the specific responsibility of progressing the Kingston project and a number of other significant amenity projects in the city.
“We have an engineer in place working on these projects. We are also awaiting the appointment of a further engineer who will be dealing with the wider issue of Sports Capital Grants,” he said.
Councillors approved outline plans for the lands – an unoccupied green space adjacent to St John the Apostle National School and for an overhaul of the existing sports facility on Millars Lane – in June of last year.
Included was provision for a children’s playground; changing rooms/community centre; outdoor gym equipment; a pedestrian walkway; a two-way cycle path; and 75 parking spaces.
A hockey pitch will be developed at Millars lane as part of the plan.
A pitch that can be used for both GAA and rugby, and a multi-use games area were also included in what have been described as the early stages of what will finally come before the Council as a completed proposal.
The Council spokesperson said the recently-appointed engineer would be “getting into the nitty gritty” before a Part 8 was completed.
Local councillor Donal Lyons (Ind) said that it was his hope the plans would come before the Council in the first quarter of next year, so that the applicable Sports Capital Grants could be sought without delay.
“There are two parts of the Kingston lands development – on of the pitches on Millars Lane. In the last City Development Plan, the objective was included that if the City Council developed pitches, they also have to develop changing room facilities.
“All that exists at the moment in Millars Lane are temporary changing room facilities,” said Cllr Lyons.
Cllr Lyons said the new appointment of an engineer to deal with the Kingston project – and the development of the ‘Swamp’ at Southpark – was welcome, and so too was the forthcoming appointment of someone to deal with Sports Capital Grants.
“We have got some money from the Sports Capital Fund for the all-weather pitch at Cappagh Park. The next part is floodlighting. There are also plans for Melody Park in Renmore – there are a number of different projects already in train,” he said.
When the Part 8 process commences, members of the public will have an opportunity to make submissions and a plan will be finalised, explained the Knocknacarra-based councillor.
“The outline plan has been debated long and hard and when it goes forward for Part 8, the public will be able to make submissions before it comes back for adoption.
“The next stage then would be to find funding,” he said.
Throughout the initial process, there had been a number of concerns raised by residents in estates adjacent to the proposed park – particularly from White Oaks where a proposed access route between Millars Lane and Kingston lands requires a previously gated access route to the estate to remain open.
The opening of this area has given rise to security concerns and resulted in alleged incidents of anti-social behaviour.
Speaking to the Galway City Tribune, a resident of another estate, Gort Siar, said while they had no objection to the plan in principle, the initial plan to create green space for Knocknacarra and for the children in the national school had been lost, and the facility was now more about accommodating sports clubs than it was about benefitting local residents.
“We’re definitely not happy with the plans as they are and we’ve had a number of interactions with councillors over the past two years,” he said.
According to this resident, initial plans satisfied the needs of the school, where pupils were currently forced to play on tarmac due to the lack of green space.
“This has moved so far away from a community space designed and proposed originally, and now it has moved to become a complex or entity that smells of a commercial operation.
“If you’re going to put a pitch in, I don’t have a problem, as long as it can be used for many disciplines and is not just being designed to suit one sports club,” he said.
The Gort Siar resident said it was his intention to make a submission to City Council on the plans, once the Part 8 process commenced.
It has been over 20 years since the creation of a public amenity facility on this green space at Kingston was first mooted.
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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