€2bn plan to develop Galways docklands

Where is the new port going I’m not sure if a bungalow free 32 acre site exists anywhere close to Galway i.e. this side of Kylemore

it is going to go into the docks…
there is a lot of industrial land there. cie have plans for the area too so hopefully it will compliment each other. i haven’t seen anything from cie on there’s yet but it was supposed to be nearly ready for planning.

It sounds perfect doesn’t it

The relocation of the port would give the city new docking facilities and would allow Galway to accommodate the lucrative cruise-liner business. Revenue of €25m a year is forecast from cruise liners alone.

It is also envisaged that Galway would become a major international hub for sea angling, sailing and related marine activities. Galway already hosts the headquarters of the Marine Institute.

Where is the location for the new port surely it is totally premature to talk about redeveloping the old port until a site has been secured for the new one.

From the Irish Times today

Proposed new port for Galway to cater for liners
Michelle McDonagh

The proposed new multimillion euro port for Galway city will aim to attract the lucrative liner business currently centred in Dublin and Cork, as well as becoming a marine hub.

The relocation of the existing port at Galway docks, a kilometre out to sea, is part of a massive €2 billion plan to transform the area into an Irish version of Sydney Harbour in what would be the biggest tourism development in the country.

The vision is for a 32-acre Waterfront City, which could attract up to 50 cruise ships a year and generate €25 million for the local economy. The current docks area would be transformed into a pedestrianised hub featuring a cultural centre, retail space, conference centre, residential units, restaurants, bars and cafes, as well as a 200-berth marina. The Galway Harbour Company is currently completing an environmental impact statement on relocating the port and they plan to lodge a planning application for this phase of the project with the city council by the middle of October.

If this application is granted, the next step will be to apply for a foreshore licence, which will take some time as it involves reclaiming land that is State-owned, according to secretary of the harbour company Tom O’Neill.

He said the new port would have the facilities to cater for the largest liners afloat which can carry 3,000 passengers.

“The vessels that are best able to deal with this type of business are the big liners trading in the Mediterranean that visit Dublin and Cork and can carry up to 3,000 passengers. We will be trying to attract these liners to come around the coast to Galway after Cork when we have the facilities to cater for them,” he said.

If approved, work on the port will start in four or five years and be completed in seven to 10 years.

© The Irish Times

The figures look poor i.e. a 1.25% annual return for the local economy with no indication of what operating revenues would be and with interest rates at 4-5% for this type of finance it doesn’t look particularly viable.

Is this another Vega City?

@Thomond Park wrote:

The figures look poor i.e. a 1.25% annual return for the local economy with no indication of what operating revenues would be and with interest rates at 4-5% for this type of finance it doesn’t look particularly viable.

Is this another Vega City?

This plan is not going to happen. As far as I can see, there’s one side who want to develop the docks, and another who want to move the docks, they’ll be fighting each other for the next few years to see who has more sway in the FF tent. More than anything, the figures they are throwing around just don’t up, 2 billion to build a cultural centre? Sounds like you’ll make the money back alright!

typical and amusing, Although no plans have been submitted yet for any stage of the plan, already, a group of ” concerned people” have organised a group called ” people before profit” to object to it.:confused:

My understanding is that the new port will be situated on land reclaimed from the bay. The reclaimed land will adjoin the existing industrial area just south of the railwayline at Lough Atalia. There will also be a spur from the railway to the new port . Once this is complete the existing dock will be redeveloped as a full scale marina.

Looking at the map that was in the press though, this scheme, if it ever goes ahead will have a huge environmental effect on the inner bay and Corrib estuary already prone to flooding.

The CIE lands to be redeveloped are the existing rail station and yard at the rear of the GSH, about 11 acres in total I think. Perhaps CIE, The Galway Harbour Company and the local council should get together and draw up a master plan with public consultation and come up with a decent renewal of this part of Galway city centre

The €2bn being talked about sounds quite conservative for what is actually being considered. The following is an approximation of a diagram published a while back in the Connaght Tribune, prepared by Tobin Engineers. It shows the massive scale of landfill being planned adjoining a new causeway along which cargo ships will be able to berth and unload and deep water berths 1km out to sea for Cruise Liners to dock.

The existing docks would be given over to amenity use as a marina whilst land currently occupied by oil depots, stores and other Harbour activities would be freed up for development. This area adjoins another large swathe of land owned by CIE which will also be up for development simultaneously. The potential is there to almost double the size of the city centre core along with the provision of a new bus/rail station in the vicinity of Eyre Square.

These opportunities are extremely exciting and could, with proper masterplanning and investment, create a whole new cultural,tourism and commercial hub for the city, easing the pressure on the historic core of Shop Street which is currently being overrun with High Street chain stores thus losing it’s unique character.

However, the proposed new docks is quite a frightening prospect. then new causeway and landfill could potentially block all views of Galway bay from the Spanish Arch / Claddagh areas. The land usage of the reclaimed zone is most likely to be industrial / dockland type, thus meaning the view of the bay would be replaced not by glistening new developments of hotels & cultural facilities as some people seem to think, but by scrap heaps, stacks of shipping containers and industrial warehouses. The area earmarked for the “new cultural quarter / tourism development” is purely the area marked Harbour Company Lands on the diagram.

Obviously the plans are at a very early stage as blocks on a map but I sincerely hope that the end result is less intrusive on views and of a much more modest scale. I fully realize that land will need to be reclaimed to allow the docks to re-locate but surely there is no reason for Galway to have such an enormous port facility.

This will be an interesting one to watch as it’s basically a done deal that something along these lines will happen in the near future. The government have their eye on the scheme as the major infrastructural project for the West during the course of the next National Development Plan and are talking in terms of “transforming” Galway into a waterfront city. It’s a noble objective but the diagram as published shows a reality far, far from the dream.

Thats an obscene amount of reclaimed land IMO. Will totally mess up the balance of, well, everything in the bay.

Has anyone realised that the proposed berths are only a coupole hundred metres from the sewerage treatment that services all of the City and it is further in the direction of the most common prevailing wind.

‘Irish Effluent Cruise for the Affluent Retirement Set’

I didnt know that the land being reclaimed is for industrial use.. thats going to look terrible. They should relocate th e port outside Galway

Or invest in rail freight to move the containers from Bellview it would be a lot chaeper; this is just a small number of local interests suitings their own positions.

a rail link to the proposed development could be used to transport goods to and from a goods depot somewhere inland near a proposed motorway junction.hopefully the plans will be on view before the end of the month,the basic plan i saw dosen’t show the reclaimed land extending as far into the bay,

@FIN wrote:

it is going to go into the docks…
there is a lot of industrial land there. cie have plans for the area too so hopefully it will compliment each other. i haven’t seen anything from cie on there’s yet but it was supposed to be nearly ready for planning.

the plan for the C.I.E. lands involves an extention to the railway station and a massive shopping and appartment complex . A great oppoturnity to extend the city centre.Hopefully it will involve something creative, it’s about time we got a few landmark buildings here. Maybe the City Planners will overcome their fear of heights.:eek:

@galwayrush wrote:

a rail link to the proposed development could be used to transport goods to and from a goods depot somewhere inland near a proposed motorway junction.hopefully the plans will be on view before the end of the month,the basic plan i saw dosen’t show the reclaimed land extending as far into the bay,

Probobly the proposed N6 outer bypass / N18 Dual Carriageway junction? It’ll be yeeeaaaaaarrrrrsss before that is done 🙁

@galwayrush wrote:

a rail link to the proposed development could be used to transport goods to and from a goods depot somewhere inland near a proposed motorway junction.hopefully the plans will be on view before the end of the month,the basic plan i saw dosen’t show the reclaimed land extending as far into the bay,

No reclamation could be justified on the basis of existing throughput

@Thomond Park wrote:

No reclamation could be justified on the basis of existing throughput

it would be impossible to increase throughput with the existing Docks facility.
in that way, it’s a strange type of plan here in Ireland, we could call it planning aheador Planning for the Future
Naw, it would never catch on.:rolleyes:

Other than liquid bulk tonnage at Galway is negligable at 147,000 tonnes or about the equivelent of 10 containers per day.

Expansion you say, how about justification of its current existence beyond pertrollium products the cost of facility replacement for Dublin with an infinately larger throughput has been found to be entirely unviable in every single study undertaken.