Two challenges initiated over permission for Galway City Ring Road

Two High Court actions have been initiated challenging the planning permission granted for the proposed Galway City Ring Road.

The Galway Race Committee has been given the green light to proceed with its judicial review of An Bord Pleanála’s permission for the €600 million route which would run from the existing M6 east of the city to Barna in the west.

Friends of the Irish Environment 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, instructed by McDermott & Allen Solicitors, 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.

Mr Justice Richard Humphreys granted leave permitting the race committee to bring its judicial review.

In documents before the court, the 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 stables for the racecourse.

Galway County Council “engaged extensively” with the committee in the years leading to the publication of the Motorway/Protective Road Scheme, in relation to various options in circumstances where the proposed route would involve the demolition of 124 stables next to the Ballybrit main stand, the applicant claims.

The committee said the Motorway/Protected Road Scheme and Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) report published in September 2018 and submitted to the board at the beginning of the statutory process included proposals for temporary and permanent stables on identified lands as part of the road project.

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 European Union law, including that the board’s decision is invalid due to its alleged failure to conduct an EIA in accordance with an article of the 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 Galway County Council, as road authority, to address the “profound impacts” of its decision to exclude the replacement stables.

Galway City Council and Galway County Council are notice parties in the proceedings.

Mr Justice Humphreys adjourned the matter for two weeks.