Galway Harbour redevelopment final plan video

gerkeo

Galway Harbour redevelopment final plan

The video is a bit "begorra begorra" but very impressive nonetheless

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbQufFAXy1U

Sponge Bob

Not the daftest plan I have ever seen cooked up, the presentation is a bit short on facts .....sort of build it and they will come.

Mind you phase one (2015) should prove the theory one way or another so they may as well try that much of it and see.

The harbour company did not mention what they will do with the tankers when they finish the first bit in 2015

[edit they did in a pdf brochure......ie nothing until phase 1 stage 2]

JohnCleary

Sponge - This is a video to show your average Joe. I can assure you that the Galway Harbour Company (and other interests) have all the facts etc. needed

Sponge Bob

Tell us what are they doing to do about the constant reek of oil all over the town between now and 2020 when they build the new tanks John ???

fifib

pretty impressive. pity wont be there for the next VOR, or least some of it

Sponge Bob

None of it will be there for the next VOR.

The first phase will attract attention from all sorts of Green nutjobs who will be making lots of noise right about the time of the VOR unless the planning applications are held over to late 2012. The battle with the Green nutjobs will be fought over the first phase, in essence, the remaining phases will be insignificant.

I dunno if anyone noticed that this development is being build in a SAC and in an SPA ....as in both. The outer bypass only clipped a SAC ( and an NHA) where this

Hopefully the corpo will go for an upgrade of the nearly maxed out Mutton Island sewage plant at the same time and will distract the Green nutjobs and An Taisce, eh John ??

You do remember all the squealing about Mutton Island phase 1 10 years back. The best way to get this large project under the radar is to spread a rumour that Mutton Island IS maxed out and about to BURSHT but that An Taisce officially won't let anyone upgrade it until it actually burshts.

That is probably the truth anyway, An Taisce in Galway would object to their own shadows

citycentre

I have major worries about the visual impact of this development and I feel it could really adversely affect the relationship of the city to the bay, Instead of looking out from say South Park or Dun Aengus at sea, sky and the hills on the horizon the view will be of concrete breakwaters, containers and all the associated mess that ports and harbours contain (scrapheaps etc).

It's a worry, however I think that the benefits may outweigh the negatives if (and only if) the scheme is very well designed, landscaped and suitable development is allowed along the new shoreline to provide high quality amenity space and a proper promenade with shops, cafes etc. The last thing we want is basically Galway Harbour Enterprise x 10 stretching out into the bay with nothing but tin sheds to look at.

Unfortunately from the video it looks like quality design is not high on the priorities of the harbour company - the graphics, visuals and the small number of 3D images of what the scheme will look like are very amateurish. Hopefully it's only a first draft because we could easily be landed with a complete eyesore if proper consideration isn't given to the aesthetics of this enormous project.

Robbo

I note at 6:22 that the Athenry-Tuam leg of the Western Rail Corridor is to open in 2011. Good luck with that one lads.

JohnCleary

Sponge Bob wrote: »

Tell us what are they doing to do about the constant reek of oil all over the town between now and 2020 when they build the new tanks John ???

for all! :pac:

Sponge Bob wrote: »

You do remember all the squealing about Mutton Island phase 1 10 years back. The best way to get this large project under the radar is to spread a rumour that Mutton Island IS maxed out and about to BURSHT but that An Taisce officially won't let anyone upgrade it until it actually burshts.

That is probably the truth anyway, An Taisce in Galway would object to their own shadows

All too well.

And I agree, An Taisce are a royal pain in the hole

Sponge Bob

The first phase, while long, should be pretty low profile. The tin boxes and tanks arrive much later on ( if ever). It cannot not wash its face financially without the tin boxes and tanks. Fixing the oily stink from the existing tanks would engender some goodwill John , non????

The long term pitch about transatlantic container traffic is, frankly, utterly risible. Not even worthy of discussion and will not happen.

Phase 1 stage 1 would be a modern nimmos pier on the far side of the river from the original but phase 1 stage 1 will not proceed absent permission for phase 1 stage 2 too.

Mind you An Taisce and the Green nutjobs in Galway will misrepresent it as a full size space terminal with green aliens living on it devouring taytos and babies.

Robbo

JohnCleary wrote: »

And I agree, An Taisce are a royal pain in the hole

An Taisce as a whole may be objectionable goons but their localised dissident splinter groups are worse.

flynnlives

This plan should be fast tracked and work should begin immediatly imo.

Sponge Bob

Then when everybody ignores Galway An Taisce for being the noisy smelly socially dysfunctional lettuce shredding loons they are they bring in complete and utter loonies like Peter Sweetman to object some more for them.

JohnCleary

"Oily stink" - My nose must be blocked cause I can't get any oily stink? Maybe i'm just used to it

Sponge Bob

JohnCleary wrote: »

"Oily stink" - My nose must be blocked cause I can't get any oily stink? Maybe i'm just used to it

For the last two years since the new tanks were commissioned there has been a strong oily smell about Galway a lot of the time....a hell of a lot of the time in fact When will that be sorted???? Someone is evidently venting it off.

Shall we send Bolphunga the Unrelenting down to the next An Taisce meeting to raise a point of order :cool:

death1234567

flynnlives wrote: »

This plan should be fast tracked and work should begin immediatly imo.

Yep, It won't be though. They'll be arguing and having planning appeals until 2030 until the whole thing is scrapped in favour of a redevelopemnt of Eyre square which will involve digging up old trees and replacing them with shiny new ones.

Sconsey

I'm inclined to agree with BTH, it looks like it could be a great development but why not actually put some investigation into the impact of the development first.

SpongeBob you seem to care so much about this why don't you actually get involved instead of spending your time pi$$ing and moaning on an internet forum and calling people names? It gets old, have you actually done anything real about all the development you are in favor of?

Sponge Bob

Sconsey wrote: »

SpongeBob you seem to care so much about this why don't you actually get involved instead of spending your time pi$$ing and moaning on an internet forum and calling people names? It gets old, have you actually done anything real about all the development you are in favor of?

Still a bit touchy about my pointing out that Pearce Stadium predates all these 'local residents' who spend their time "pi$$ing and moaning" about it as you so eloquently put it. Get over that sconsey, it is a fact.

What are you recommending I get "involved" in o wise one, spell it out there like a good lad ?????

ronnie3585

Sconsey wrote: »

I'm inclined to agree with BTH, it looks like it could be a great development but why not actually put some investigation into the impact of the development first.

SpongeBob you seem to care so much about this why don't you actually get involved instead of spending your time pi$$ing and moaning on an internet forum and calling people names? It gets old, have you actually done anything real about all the development you are in favor of?

Mr. Sweetman, is that you objecting to SpongeBob objecting?

There can be all the best intentions and shiny models in the world but the reality of the situation is that it will be a hell of a long time (if ever) before there are sufficient funds to develop this kind of infrastructure.

Pity.

Utopia Parkway

JohnCleary wrote: »

"Oily stink" - My nose must be blocked cause I can't get any oily stink? Maybe i'm just used to it

Yeah must say I can't smell it either. Must be my deodorant.

Robbo

Utopia Parkway wrote: »

Yeah must say I can't smell it either. Must be my deodorant.

I quite often get a fierce bang of bitumen from the place.

Sconsey

Sponge Bob wrote: »

Still a bit touchy about my pointing out that Pearce Stadium predates all these 'local residents' who spend their time "pi$$ing and moaning" about it as you so eloquently put it. Get over that sconsey, it is a fact.

What are you recommending I get "involved" in o wise one, spell it out there like a good lad ?????

Well Sponge you include name calling like 'Green nutjobs' in your posts, do you actually think that will put the Greens in their box? no need for you to actually make representations to you local TD's, or maybe write to an Taisce with your opinions on the development, or maybe even contact the Greens with a coherent argument and ask them to respond...no, you just whine on an internet forum and throw insults around.

Kind of funny to me that you are complaining about an oil smell in town from the tanks, maybe if a bit more thought/planning went into their development the stink around town could have been avoided...you'd probably have called people nutjobs if they raised this concern prior to the development

Sponge Bob

It is a sad but true fact that Galway is the West of Ireland hub of what passes for the farce that is the Green Economy.

A large number of specialists live in the city , constantly on the hunt for consultancy eco/bio/habitat gigs. These are tied in with infrastructural developments.

When these greeen/eco/bio/habitat types do not get their noses in the consultancy trough they kick up an absolute furore through an taisce and those splinter groups mentioned.

It is basically a form of legal extortion. Welcome To The Green Economy.

The harbour board will spend somewhere between €500k and €1m on these green economy parasites before a single speck of sand is dredged. If they never proceed with this plan then that money will be wasted but it will assuredly be spent.

Yet they have no choice but to spend the money and it will take 2 - 3 years to finish all that consultancyfest and plannin after which the first phase of constriction itself will only take about 2 summers....construction will probably be restricted in winter in case a duck is hurt!!!!

They will have to hire transport planners to update the GTPS

They will have to get up to speed on our Mediterranean Salt Meadows ... that is in Galway yes.

They will have to study the overall Hydrological Impact on the Lamprey if there is any change to basal turbidity in the study zone.

They will have to investigate each of these birds , its nesting , numbers and migratory habits. It will have to 'mitigate' any impact on any of them from its plans.

Proposed Special Conservation Interests/Additional Special Conservation Interests
Black-throated diver
Shelduck
Great northern diver
Wigeon
Cormorant
Teal
Grey Heron
Shoveler
Light-bellied brent goose
Golden plover
Red-brested merganser
Lapwing
Ringed plover
Dunlin
Bar-tailed godwit
Curlew
Turnstone
Redshank
Sandwich tern
Black-headed gull
Common tern
Common gull

They will have to balance their EIS out against the SEA and the HDA and the City Development plan.

Once they do all that ....and much more...they are then ready to apply for planning permission and face the loons.

The very best of luck to them. They will need it.

Sponge Bob

Sconsey wrote: »

Well Sponge you include name calling like 'Green nutjobs' in your posts, do you actually think that will put the Greens in their box? no need for you to actually make representations to you local TD's, or maybe write to an Taisce with your opinions on the development, or maybe even contact the Greens with a coherent argument and ask them to respond...no, you just whine on an internet forum and throw insults around.

Sconsey , if I was in the habit of talking to ****e that sticks to my shoe you would accuse me of being mad. I am not mad I assure you

The draft City Development plan has badly hamstrung the harbour plan too.

It attaches a large number of preconditions that inevitably mean the green economy needs to be well greased before any planning application.

http://www.galwaycity.ie/AllServices/Planning/Publications
/DraftDevelopmentPlan2011-2017Publications/TheFile,6461,en.pdf

"Support the sustainable development of Galway Harbour including for new and expanded harbour facilities, subject to environmental, visual,
economic viability and transportation considerations."

Even having done all that the loons will be out howling about it

Sconsey

Well to be honest now you seem to be on the complete opposite side of the spectrum, I'd be worried the country would be just paved over and feck the consequences if you were in charge!

Sponge Bob

Sconsey wrote: »

Well to be honest now you seem to be on the complete opposite side of the spectrum, I'd be worried the country would be just paved over and feck the consequences if you were in charge!

I'm not Sconsey, I am just a ruthlessly pragmatic person. Any real objection I have to this plan is economic....I basically agree with what Ronnie said above.

The economic case is that having eventually dredged and built and created 40 odd acres of new landfill the land value becomes embedded in and key to the overall balancing of the books.

I cannot see what value this 40 acres of landfill will have in the harbour.

The end of the current and rather tatty harbour industrial park is an abandoned builders yard used by bernard mcnamara who is off to NAMA any day now.

Absent economic support for that imputed value the numbers do not stack for me. And then they will be down €1m in bribes to grease the Green Economy to cap all that :rolleyes:

citycentre

Sponge Bob wrote: »

The draft City Development plan has badly hamstrung the harbour plan too.

It attaches a large number of preconditions that inevitably mean the green economy needs to be well greased before any planning application.

http://www.galwaycity.ie/AllServices/Planning/Publications
/DraftDevelopmentPlan2011-2017Publications/TheFile,6461,en.pdf

"Support the sustainable development of Galway Harbour including for new and expanded harbour facilities, subject to environmental, visual,
economic viability and transportation considerations."

Even having done all that the loons will be out howling about it

In fairness Sponge Bob, you don't really think that something of this scale which will completely transform the city one way or another, should be allowed to just fire ahead WITHOUT taking those factors into consideration do you?

I am all for the continued development of Galway and like you get extremely frustrated when the serial objectors and environ-MENTALISTS get involved in objecting to and derailing sometimes exciting and often essential projects. However I honestly don't think that something this big should be left in the hands of an some engineer who has just gotten the hang of SketchUP and Windows Movie Maker to design and push forward.

From what little I have seen the logistics and purely practical element of this scheme seem to have been well resolved but I see no evidence of much regard for the environmental (not that I personally could care less about birds or Salt Meadows or the Lamprey) or most worryingly the visual effect the proposal will have.

Sponge Bob

This scheme has been around in one form or another for 5 years and it was launched this time last year for the VOR before being relaunched this week with a few small mods....the marina has been brought forward.

see

http://buckplanning.blogspot.com/2009/02/350m-plan-for-new-galway-harbour.html

€350m Plan ...€200m now

For all I know the enviro stuff has been underway for years.

ScumLord

I want it, but with more guns.

galwayrush

Can't we just shoot the serial objectors?

swe_fi

I wish that people who develop this city were a little bit more...eh...mental. I mean in the "that-was-a-nice-semiprofessional-powerpoint-ehhhvideoImean-this-could-be-alot-of-fun-lets-have-a-quick-vote-actually-screw-that go-ahead-and-build-build-build" kind of way. I would actually like to see diggers there tonight.

I think this will happen though, more or less like the video. I can feel it. It will be like Sydney. Actually can we throw in a nice bridge, doesn't really matter to where but I like bridges.