Green group’s warning on Connemara N59 upgrade
An environmental charity has sent a legal warning to Galway County Council that it must submit a new application for the upgrade of the N59 between Maam Cross and Oughterard as it has failed to abide by conditions set by An Bord Pleanála.
Friends of the Irish Environment (FIE) claim the Council has not set out its agreed work methods with the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) before starting out on a proposed offline section at Glengowla.
In the letter, solicitors acting on behalf of the charity state that after the project was given the green light, experts employed by the Council discovered that this stretch of land had been mischaracterised in the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS).
“The error is contained in the identification of a seepage habitat critical to the freshwater pearl mussel as dry amenity or improved agricultural grassland. According to a subsequent expert report submitted to the Council in 2015, rather than being ‘dry calcareous and neutral grassland’ as stated in the EIS, it was in fact ‘eroding ground’ and ‘flowing water over saturated ground’ directly connected to the Owenriff River, an area with abundant adult and juvenile mussels close by.”
This had been the source of the dispute between the Council, the objecting landowner and environmental campaigners during the oral hearing. FIE maintains that was why the planning appeals board put in the stipulation that NPWS had to be closely involved and agree to “method statements” before the work began.
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