Port plans are scaled back as Û26m land deal falls through

By Darragh McDonagh

Galway Harbour Company has scaled down its plans for the redevelopment of the city port after a prospective buyer was allowed to back out of a pre-contract agreement for the purchase of a €26m site earmarked to finance the project.

It is understood that fuel supplier Topaz entered into an agreement with the State-owned company and paid a deposit of €130,000 for the purchase of land in the vicinity of the harbour, valued at €26m at the height of the property boom.

However, it was revealed at a Galway Harbour Company board meeting last Friday that non-compliance with the terms of the pre-contract agreement had allowed the prospective buyer to avail of a loophole and back out of the €26m deal.

The site is now thought to be worth just a fraction of the €26m price negotiated between the two parties around three years ago prior to the collapse of the property market.

Galway Harbour Company is planning to self-finance the ambitious redevelopment of the docks through the sale of land and will not receive any government funding for the project.

It announced yesterday morning that it had “scaled back” its proposal for the redevelopment of Galway harbour “to take account of the current economic climate”.

The project will now be undertaken in four phases instead of two and is not expected to be completed for seven years. Galway Harbour Company is currently engaged with An Bord Pleanála in revising its planning submission in relation to the project.

Eamon Bradshaw, CEO of the company, acknowledged that recent events in relation to the sale of the dockland site to Topaz had been “a blow” to the port development plan, but denied that they had been the sole reason behind the revision of the proposal.

“We have had to refine our plan to fit within our cost budget but this process had started in any event and we had asked our engineers to come up with a plan to that end. Of course it’s a blow and it will be much more difficult without it,” he added.

For more, read this week's Connacht Sentinel.