CITY TRIBUNE
Ring Road construction poses health risk to nursing home residents
From this week’s Galway City Tribune – Noise exceeding acceptable decibel levels and poor air quality during the construction of the N6 Galway City Ring Road would present a health hazard and force a Castlegar nursing home to close.
At the An Bord Pleanála oral hearing into the ring road this week, experts raised concerns that such conditions could affect residents of the Caiseal Geal Nursing Home on the School Road – adjacent to the location of deep excavations which would involve rock breaking and blasting.
The ring road project team estimate that this part of the project would take 18 months, but legal and expert representatives of the facility’s owner, predicted that this was underestimated and would take much longer.
Michael O’Donnell, barrister for the nursing home, said he was shocked that the facility was not mentioned or considered in an Environmental Impact Study. He asked if the developers were even aware of the 42-bed facility, which had been rebuilt to meet HIQA (Health Information and Quality Authority) requirements in 2015.
Had the owners known the route of the ring road was going to be so close to them, they may not have gone ahead with the rebuild as the proposed roadworks would now “extremely and adversely” affect their services.
It was not only a care home, but a step-down facility for both respite and palliative care for very vulnerable and high dependency patients.
Work was planned to go ahead on the road project on three sides of the property and on one side, would only be a distance of 12 metres away from a courtyard to the north of the facility which was used by the residents on a daily basis.
However, Dr Imelda Shanahan, a specialist in air quality, noise and vibration, told the hearing that the residents would not be able to use that courtyard at all between April and September when the deep excavations, blasting, rock breaking and transport of dug soil would take place.
She said that the dust, noise and vibrations from the site so close to the nursing home would deem it inoperable and create a health hazard to the patients.
The blasting — estimated at five times per week — can only take place in the early spring, through to September to protect the wintering birds in the vicinity.
Dr Shanahan said during her inspection of the site in February, two windows looking out to the north were open, but this would not be at all possible due to the level of blasting so close to the facility.
Work is also due to take place on realigning the main gas line as well as sewer pipes.
She estimated the deep digging would create about 377,000 tonnes of soil and would take at least 15 months to transport, and not nine months as they were being told.
This would also involve a huge volume of traffic, especially HGVs transporting this soil from earth excavation — between 179 or 215 movements a week, depending on the length of the working week.
She carried out an air quality and noise impact assessment taking into consideration the sensitivity of the long-stay care home, which also provided respite and palliative care.
Exposure to contaminants by “these vulnerable groups” would be a health hazard. The main pollutants would be dust fibres, sulphur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide and carbon dioxide as well as fungal spores and bacteria from the large-scale excavation of earth.
These pollutants would cause a “serious respiratory problem, particularly for older people” and would be unavoidable due to the close proximity of the work to the care home. She further explained that the proximity would mean there would be an uncontrolled dispersion process and again pointed out that one side of the facility was only 12 metres away, which was far too close to be safe. Dust, in particular, couldn’t be controlled within a 25-metre range, she added.
The nursing home is currently located in a quiet, tranquil setting but noise from the blasting, rock breaking and processing activities, would be well above the acceptable World Health Organisation guidelines for community noise recommendations of 30 decibels indoors and 45 decibels outdoor.
The site clearance noises could reach 71 decibels in the building and 77 decibels in the courtyard; the rock extraction would create 79 and 85 decibels respectively in the same areas and HGV transport would cause decibels of 69 and 70 respectively.
“In my professional opinion, this would be intolerable for residents as the nursing home is uniquely close to the site, especially the courtyard used by residents.
“Their air quality would also be impacted. It would be intolerable to operate the nursing home during construction as permissible noise levels will also be exceeded,” she concluded.
Mr O’Donnell further added that HIQA requirements couldn’t be met in those circumstances and that the facility would be closed down.
Again, he said it was shocking that no analysis had been done in regard to the proximity of the nursing home to the propose site works at Castlegar.
This is just one report from last week’s coverage of the Galway City Ring Road oral hearing. To stay up to date each week, see the Connacht Tribune or Galway City Tribune. You can buy a digital edition HERE.
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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