A neighbourhood regeneration scheme for the Sea Road/Small Crane area, which would cost the city c€3.7 million, is due to be voted on tomorrow by the Galway City Council’s Planning Strategic Policy Committee.
The first version of the Small Crane Enhancement Scheme was rejected by the PSPC last May, following upon the nearly unanimous opposition of residents and businesses in the area.
Revised plans were unveiled last September, but residents called on the council again to reject that version. The West Residents’ Association describes the revised plans as a “scaled-back version of the original”.
Opposition centres on issues like the proposed new-look street tiling and other visual changes which residents feel would damage the area’s “quintessential old Galway neighbourhood” look and feel.
Residents say that the plan to pedestrianise the Small Crane would increase peak time traffic in St Joseph’s Avenue and New Street West. They also fear that pedestrianisation would turn the Small Crane into a “mini Quay Street in summer”, causing a loss of residential amenity.
While the WRA welcomed the council’s plans for community gardens to form part of the plans, the association said: “We do not want a contemporary housing estate veneer to be grafted onto our residential streets, nor a stylish new makeover for the Small Crane.”
Locals have also pointed out that they have been calling on the council for the last number of years to fix the drainage and broken footpaths and that such work would cost “a fraction of the sum” of the proposed scheme.
The plans must be approved by the PSPC prior to going before the 15 councillors for a final decision.
