Ring Road fate will ultimately be decided by the courts
The fate of the €650 million N6 Galway City Ring Road (GCRR) looks set to be decided in the courts – regardless of the outcome of An Bord Pleanála’s oral hearing currently underway in Galway.
Environmental group Hands Across the Corrib Ltd, say that several objectors have already indicated their willingness to challenge the proposed roadway through the courts system if necessary.
Hand Across the Corrib Ltd previously challenged the ill-fated Galway City Outer Bypass in both the High Court and Supreme Court, before the €400 million project was eventually turned down by the European Court of Justice in 2013.
The group outlined its objections to the proposed ring road at the oral hearing last week and claimed that the number of people who would lose their homes as a result of the road would be “bigger than any single eviction during the famine”.
A total of 54 houses are set to be purchased to make way for the GCRR with 44 houses earmarked for demolition and a further 10 to be sold again as houses once all construction work is completed.
Speaking after the hearing, Donal Honan, a director of Hands Across the Corrib, said that local authorities in Galway have spent two decades focussed on building roads instead of tackling the city’s traffic problems.
“The shame of all of this is that 20 years have gone by and nothing has changed. The solution still has to be a road,” he said.
See full coverage of the Bord Pleanála Oral Hearing into the proposed Galway Ring Road in this week’s Connacht Tribune.
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