Many neighbourhoods of Galway City may be changed beyond recognition due to unavoidable and vital flood defence engineering, Galway Advertiser has learned.
Salthill, Ballyloughane, Wellpark and other areas around Lough Atalia have been highlighted by OPW officials and Galway City Council staff as new districts of serious concern for future coastal flooding events after a thorough, three-year investigation.
Enormous sea walls, re-flooded wetlands, tidal gates, embankments, road-raising, rock armour, steel mesh gabion baskets, anti-flood public realm enhancements such as steep gradients in civic areas, and even a complete rebuild of the entire Salthill ‘Prom’ are all currently under consideration.
Not including Salthill, civil engineering sources conservatively estimate mooted flood defence costs to exceed €25m. Depending on the preferred solution for Salthill, costs might exceed €65m for the Office of Public Works (OPW ).
“With the OPW and our main contractors ARUP, we are currently undergoing a program revision and scope revision,” says Ronan O’Reilly, senior executive engineer with Galway City Council. “Bluntly, the [flood relief] scheme needs to be much larger than originally envisaged. After surveying, the complexities of Galway’s river and coastal system are greater than CFRAM indicated, and we’re going to need to include more flood defences in more areas than first thought.”
Many of these areas were not included in the detailed surveying of Galway county and city began in 2020 as part of the OPW’s western region Catchment Flood Risk Assessment and Management Study (CFRAM ), in which parts of Galway City and Claregalway were highlighted as official Areas for Further Assessment (AFA ).
These survey assessments are now nearing completion, and will be presented to local councillors and the wider public in the first half of 2024.
Before the current scoping exercise expanded areas of flood concern, the original assessments were restricted to Nimmos Pier, Claddagh Quay, Raven Terrace, the Eglinton Canal, Wolfe Tone Bridge, Merchants Quay, Long Walk, and the New Docks.
Specific sectons of Salthill were included within the scope of the original Galway City Flood Relief Scheme – Coirib go Cósta – but this latest revision now means the entire seaward side of Salthill will be earmarked for physical flood defences.
“It’s too soon to suggest the whole Prom will need to be replaced, as there are options,” says O’Reilly. After two rounds of non-statutory public consultation, an “emerging, preferred option” should be designed and ready for planning by the first quarter of 2025. Last year, Galway City councillors rejected proposals for a €1m, six-month temporary cycle lane along a section of the Salthill seafront, with potential flood defences forming part of the debate.
“There is a transport project and a flood defence project and we are cognisant of each other”, says O’Reilly. “With these infrastructure projects there has to be linking-in.”
Ballyloughane and Lough Atalia are now significant additions to the list, with expectations being that these areas will need substantial engineering interventions, including improvements to their natural wetlands, with submergible vegetation encouraged, solid walls built, and demountable barriers and raised roadways introduced as linked elements for a coastal flooding solution.
The new areas identified by the recently expanded scoping exercise will be added to the public consultation forums in 2024. [email protected]
