Galway City Tribune – The decision on replacing the Kirwan roundabout came down to “the needs of one family versus the needs of the city”, according to City Council Chief Executive Brendan McGrath.
Concerns were raised at a local authority meeting this week over a family who own a B&B on the N84 side of the Headford Road – just off the roundabout – and will be left “marooned” by the new junction.
Cllr Mike Crowe said the Collins family, who run St Anthony’s B&B, have lived in their property for 50 years, and own a site next door which has planning permission for a home for a family member.
He said that rather than creating a situation where the family would become prisoners in their own home, with lights shining into the front of their house and “platoons of vehicles” passing at all angles, the Council should create a new entrance 15 to 20 feet away through Sandyvale Lawn.
Under the approved plans, an induction loop will be placed in the driveway of the Collins home, which will alert the traffic lights to the presence of a car and in theory, allow it to exit during the next ‘green’ phase.
Cllr Crowe said he flagged the access issue a year ago, but he did not believe the consultants, Halcrow Barry, examined it in any real depth.
He said Collins family made a submission to the Council on the planning application, which said an alternative entrance did not seem to have been considered by the local authority or consultants.
They pointed out that an agreeable alternative would be to close off the existing entrance and to allow access via Sandyvale Lawn – which was approved in a planning application from 2007 for a new house on their site, though this permission has expired.
The Council replied: “Consultants were asked to consider this alternative. Consideration of relocation of the entrance would only have been examined if it was not technically feasible to accommodate the entrance at its current location.
“The proposal to relocate the entrance to Sandyvale Lawn would only be contemplated if access/egress could not have been retained at the current location,” it reads.
“That reply is frankly astonishing. It says ‘we didn’t bother looking at it all, really’.
To read the rest of this article and extensive coverage of the discussion on the Kirwan Roundabout, see this week’s Galway City Tribune. Buy a digital edition of this week’s paper here, or download the app for Android or iPhone.
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