Two High Court actions have been brought this week over the granting of planning permission for the Galway City Ring Road.
The court granted the Galway Race Committee permission to proceed with a judicial review of An Bord Pleanála’s permission for the €600m route which would run from the existing M6 east of the city to Barna in the west.
The Friends of the Irish Environment (FIE ) has lodged separate proceedings against the board, Ireland and the Attorney General over the approval. Its application seeking leave has been adjourned until Monday.
The race committee, represented by Dermot Flanagan SC, is taking its case against An Bord Pleanála. It seeks to quash the board’s December 2021 decision to approve the road development and the county council’s N6 Galway City Ring Road Motorway Scheme 2018 and Protected Road Scheme 2018.
Impact on Ballybrit Racecourse
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In documents before the court, the Race committee said part of the proposed road development involves the construction of a 240-metre tunnel under the Galway Racecourse at Ballybrit, to the north of the racetrack. It said its current stables would be lost as a consequence of the tunnel’s construction.
It alleges that the planning board “erred” in failing to provide appropriate mitigation for the racecourse as part of the approval for the road development.
The board has failed, the committee claims, to supply reasoned conclusions for rejecting the recommendations of its own inspector by excluding from the permitted development the permanent acquisition of certain lands, referred to as Plot 713, for the provision of permanent stables for the racecourse.
EU Law
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The committee claims the board’s alleged failure to provide adequate reasons for excluding the proposed permanent stables and proposed permanent acquisition of Plot 713 is a breach of its duty.
Further among its grounds of challenge is a number of points of EU law, including that the board’s decision is invalid due to its alleged failure to conduct an EIA in accordance with Article 1 of the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA ) Directive.
The committee also claims the board acted in breach of the public participation requirements of the EIA Directive and the Aarhus Convention in allegedly failing to provide any opportunity for the committee and/or the Road Authority to address the “profound impacts” of its decision to exclude the replacement stables.
In a statement to the Advertiser, the conservation charity Friends of the Irish Environment [FIE] confirmed that in the High Court Mr Justice Humphries gave them permission to make some amendments to their application to judicially review the proposed N6 Galway City Ring Road, including adding the Minister for Housing, Planning & Local Government as a Notice Party, and adjourned the matter for a week.
