Ring road moves up a gear

Planning permission for the long-awaited 18-kilometre, €600 million city bypass – now known as the Galway City Ring Road – will be lodged with An Bord Pleanála by the end of October.

Galway County Council said it has a couple of loose ends to tie-up in the coming weeks, before submitting an Environmental Impact Assessment Report and Natura Impact Statement to the planning appeals board.

An oral hearing into the project will be held sometime in 2019, and An Bord Pleanála will then decide the road’s fate.

The proposed road will impact 1,000 landowners, and letters giving notice of possible compulsory purchase orders (CPOs) will issue on the same day as the application is lodged, confirmed Derek Pender, senior engineer with the local authority.

The move comes after Government approved the advancement of the road to the statutory planning process at Tuesday’s Cabinet meeting.

Mr Pender said it was ‘good news for Galway’ that the County Council can now drive-on with the project to planning.

The proposed national road project comprises 12km of motorway/dual carriageway between the existing N6 at Coolagh (northeast of the city) to the existing Ballymoneen Road (northwest of the city), and continue as a single carriageway road for 6km as far as the R336 Coast Road, west of Barna.

The ring road will include a new bridge across the River Corrib as well as grade separated junctions serving the N83, N84 and N59. The project will be funded by Transport Infrastructure Ireland.

See full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune.

Get the Connacht Tribune Live app
The Connacht Tribune Live app is the home of everything that is happening in Galway City and  county. It’s completely FREE and features all the latest news, sport and information on what’s on in your area. Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.