Galway Bay fm newsroom - Galway City Council has agreed to a variation of the City Development Plan to support specific projects outlined in the Galway Transport Strategy.
The variation was adopted at last evening’s Local Authority meeting and will see the creation of a new junction at the intersection between College Road and Lough Atalia Road.
The adopted variations to the city development plan 2017-2023 contain two parts.
The first relates a minor realignment of the Cross City Link located between College Road and Lough Atalia Road to provide for a link through recreation and amenity zoned lands.
The change will allow for the redevelopment of the green area to implement traffic management and infrastructural changes to facilitate the city centre access network as part of the Galway Transport Strategy or GTS.
This proposal was carried unanimously by councillors present at the meeting.
The second section of the variation sought to amend section 3.10 of the city development plan, to provide additional text that further supports the specific objectives included in the GTS - including public transport measures, the city centre access network, the cross city link and the cycle network.
Several Councillors sought clarification as to whether changing the text now could lead to more lands being rezoned in future.
The City Chief Executive Brendan McGrath, Senior Planner Caroline Phelan and Head of Transport Uinsinn Finn assured councillors that the variations would only apply to the current city development plan – with Uinsinn Finn adding that any proposals to rezone lands in the future would again be brought before Councillors.
Before a vote was a taken an amendment "to add the inclusion of a specific reference to ‘proper planning and sustainable development of the area’ in line of the recommendations by the NWRA," was proposed by Councillor Owen Hanley and was included.
The second section of the proposed variation, related to the additional text, was carried successfully by 12 votes to four, with two absent.
