Letters

Galway City Council and car-dependence

Council needs to change with the times

Thu Apr 27 2023 - 00:14

Sir, – Galway City Council chief executive Brendan McGrath and several city councillors are critical of the recent decisions by An Bord Pleanála to refuse permission for social housing in Galway (“Galway council chief ‘surprised and disappointed’ by An Bord Pleanála refusals for social housing in city”, News, April 24th), but the reality is that the council keeps trying to build social houses on poorly serviced peripheral sites with no social amenities. They argue that the proposed Galway City ring road will provide the connectivity needed for these sites. The board rightly rejects these projects on the basis that the ring road is not and might never be built and is perpetuating car-dependency among the least well-off. Meanwhile the council owns large tracts of land in the city centre that are given over to surface car parking. Some of the same councillors who are complaining about the An Bord Pleanála decision now voted last year to replace one of those surface car parks with a multistorey car park. – Yours, etc,

CIARÁN FERRIE,

Dublin 6.

Sir, – Galway’s chief executive, Brendan McGrath expresses his disappointment about recent planning refusals from An Bord Pleanála, where lack of infrastructure, with the resulting implications for car-dependence, were among the reasons given. He then repeats the claim that “the Castlegar land is probably no more than a 20 minute walk from Eyre Square”.

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A brief foray into Google Maps shows very clearly that this walk is more than double the claimed 20 minutes. Obviously, you can regard this as a simple slip of the tongue. However the same claim has been made in the past, both by Mr McGrath and others, in the context of illustrating the apparent suitability of the applications. But perhaps what it illustrates instead is that a lack of focus and attention to detail when it comes to pedestrian and cycling infrastructure is what is really holding Galway back.

There are plenty of existing residential areas in the city that are poorly served by footpaths and crossings, and the distinct lack of priority at providing segregated cycle routes in Galway means that biking to work will continue to be unattractive to many. So surely the best approach is to see An Bord Pleanála’s reasoning in the context of the big problems that we know we face – climate, health, traffic and air pollution, and to focus on providing infrastructure suitable for a city in 2023. – Yours, etc,

DAVE MATHIESON,

Salthill,

Galway.