After a packed public meeting on the need for the long-overdue construction of a pedestrian-cycling bridge over the River Corrib, a multi-sectoral delegation was set up to meet with senior management in Galway City Council on the issue.
This group-comprising members with community, business, cycling, waterways, tourism, heritage and environmental interests- recently met with the council’s Director of Services Derek Pender and Project Engineer Micheál Cormican.
We were informed that, in spite of funding being withdrawn by the National Transport Authority (NTA) which had previously been committed and which could have meant the death knell for the construction of a bridge on top of the former Galway City-Clifden railway line, the council undertook immediate decisive action to secure the agreement of the national Urban Regeneration Development Fund (which was set up under the National Development Plan 2018-2027) for the local authority to progress the project through the relevant statutory planning process.
To continue with this process in a situation when there was no financial or policy support from the NTA, we were told that internally, the local authority has transferred the project from its NTA-funded office for Active Travel projects to the newly established office for Project Management and Capital Delivery.
We commend City Hall for taking this progressive course of action.
However it’s important for the general public to realise that the funding currently in place is to bring the project through the statutory planning consent process only and there is currently no funding model in place when this planning and design phase is completed. Therefore there is still a serious question mark over whether this bridge will ever become a reality.
Sadly we have been here before. In 1999 it was declared that this bridge, to be known as the Millennium Bridge, would be open to the public by December 2000 acting as a hub connecting to the newly opened Terryland Forest Park, to the nearby developing cultural district, and to a proposed series of recreational facilities and a network of paths along the River Corrib and canals. Through no fault of the council at the time the bridge did not come to pass.
Over a quarter of a century later though its importance as a vital piece of urban infrastructure has only grown in stature. For it would provide a safe active travel route connecting people on both sides of the River Corrib to their places of work (including the planned urban village to be built on what is now the Dyke Road carpark) and study as well as to hospitals, leisure facilities and areas rich in biodiversity. Futhermore it would, by directly connecting into the long overdue Connemara Greenway, dramatically boost sustainable tourism and bring huge economic benefits to the region west of the Corrib.
Support for the bridge includes Galway City Council, the Urban Regeneration and Development Fund (URDF) Section of Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, the University of Galway, community organisations such as the Galway City Community Network in the city and the Connemara Greenway Alliance in the county, heritage waterways advocates such as Corrib Beo, and businesses such as Aerogen, as well as multiple schools and health advocates.
In order to ensure that the bridge is built, a newly formed multi-sectoral grouping will, amongst other actions, be writing to all national political representatives for Galway West as well as to all candidates in the upcoming by-elections requesting their public support and asking to state what actions they can undertake to ensure funding is secured at a national level once the statutory planning process is completed. We realise of course that there is wide political support. But after so many delays over so many decades, we need at this stage firm political action for the construction of what will become a icon and a symbol of a new sustainable Galway.
Photo shows attendees at Corrib Bridge meeting in City Hall (L-R): Micheal O Cinneide, Jen Cunningham, Justine Delaney, Brendan Smith, Brendan Mulligan, Freddy Valla, Micheál Cormican and Derek Pender. Not in photo- Bernadette Mullarkey.
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