M6 - Galway City Ring Road [planning decision pending]

marno21

An Bord Pleanála (ABP) approved the scheme with conditions on 6 December 2021. Three applications for judicial review have been granted by the High Court. The High Court has imposed a stay on progressing the scheme. On 30 January the High Court quashed the ABP decision to approve the scheme and remitted the application back before the Board to the point in time immediately after the submission of the Inspector’s Report. ABP to reconsider the application and make a new decision. The NTA have commenced work on the update to the Galway Transport Strategy. The new GMATS will assess the need for the proposed N6 GCRR as well as other transport modes.

No matter what the NTA decide, Ryan will remove this from the GMATS as he has done in other cities. Another battle on the way.

marno21

As posted by @Limerick74 , this is once again before ABP.

https://www.rte.ie/news/regional/2023/1025/1412889-galway-road/

Feel free to restart Groundhog Day here and have the same debates as before, but play the ball not the man please.

McGrath5

"Both councils say they are confident their plans will stand up to such scrutiny."

Interesting to see how they can square this with the Climate action plan, like no matter what way they sell it this road will only serve to induce more car traffic.

what_traffic

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121282195#Comment_121282195

Will they share with the public what those updates are in a clear and transparent manner!

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121282143#Comment_121282143

So will this have to go back out for public consultation or hearings seeing as the application has been modified?

Is there any info on what these modifications are?

Limerick74

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121282258#Comment_121282258

The submitted documents are likely to be available on project website once ABP are set up.

remfan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121282195#Comment_121282195

Does anyone have a summary (data) that can show that the plan won't align with the 2023 Climate Action Plan. What specifically in the plan would drive a determination from ABP that their original rejection of the approval should stand? The councils must have reviewed the climate action plan and the ring road design and come to the conclusion that is has no impact on the original decision to grant permission. Unless they view hope as a strategy.

Kermit.de.frog

Great news. Let's get on with it.

timmyntc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121282389#Comment_121282389

The issue last time was ABP did not consider how the project would impact the States climate plan. Not that it was in contravention of said plan.

No judgement has been made on that yet, so its up to ABP this time to see how the ring road fits into the national climate plan. (It wont)

remfan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121282950#Comment_121282950

The challenge here is with a blanket statement "its up to ABP this time to see how the ring road fits into the national climate plan. (It wont)". Why won't it, specifically? That is what will drive the decision, if the plan doesn't have clear and specific rules, that shows that the ring road as planned is in contravention, then I cannot see it having any impact on the decision. What in the plan prevents the road getting the go ahead?

timmyntc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121282991#Comment_121282991

The CAP has targets for 20% reduction in all road journey kms by 2030, and 50% of all journeys to be walking/cycling/PT.

The ring road has been shown to increase number of car journeys and car miles travelled, and will cause more people to drive over public transport. This what the projects own modelling shows.

timmyntc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121283178#Comment_121283178

There are also some parts of CAP 23 on land use, namely that new land use planning should be "transport oriented planning" (i.e. not car transport), and also that Local Authorities need to ensure all urban transport design conforms to DMURS.

On the former point, a ring road with no bus lanes or parts of the project with public transport elements will likely fall foul of the requirement that new land use has PT in mind.

remfan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121283178#Comment_121283178

The Friends of the Irish Environment have launched a judicial review challenge against the 2023 Climate Action Plan because the Plan fails to set out the detail necessary to show how exactly the government plans to reduce emissions in line with the legally binding carbon budgets.

The CAP targets such as “a 20% reduction in all road journey kms by 2030, and 50% of all journeys to be walking/cycling/PT” are just indicative items on a roadmap of actions for climate measures and policies that will be needed if we are to stay within the carbon budgets. They are not legally binding as far as I can tell.

The same group who successfully challenged the original ABP planning approval because of their failure to consider the new Climate Action Plan 2021, are now challenging the government on the 2023 version, because as it stands it has no teeth. This is a somewhat circular argument don’t you think?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121283324#Comment_121283324

Not in the least

If anything the legal challenge will have a similar effect i.e. it'll force the govt to put even more solid plans and actions into effect to clearly show a path to the targeted reductions. Right now, while they've done excellent work, there are gaps and omissions and its these that FIE are going after

On that basis alone, the case against the RR only grows stronger

The best the govt can hope for is ABP decide on the RR before the FIE case is decided

remfan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121283355#Comment_121283355

That is exactly the issue, if ABP rule in favour before the FIE case, then the diggers move in. I expect that this is why the councils are confident that the re-submission will be a success, because the original reason for quashing the approval has no teeth (at least not yet). And as we know these cases can take years to be decided.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121283394#Comment_121283394

No teeth? Regardless of the FIE challenge to the CAP, the GCRR was going to really struggle to be approved in line with CAP

That is still the case. It now has to be assessed against the current CAP requirements. Its very likely that it will fail that assessment for the reasons listed earlier.

Only change the FIE challenge to the CAP will make is future requirements are likely to be even stricter but then that was always going to be the case based on how we've set out the carbon budgeting.

We'll have to wait and see either way, maybe ABP will approve it, maybe they won't. Until we know what is contained in the updated application its hard to make a judgement call either way

Pete_Cavan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121283394#Comment_121283394

Thinking that a favourable decision from ABP is the end of that is very naive. It would almost certainly result in an immediate new legal challenge of the ABP decision that such a decision cannot be made until the FIE case has been adjudicated on (and adequate changes have been made to the CAP should FIE win). The initial court applications have probably already been written.

Even if ABP rule in favour before the FIE case, diggers wont be moving in for a long time. They will have to complete detailed design, conclude CPOs, undertake all advanced works and then tender the main contract. There is a couple of years in all that, the FIE case will likely have been ruled upon before diggers move in.

remfan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121283716#Comment_121283716

It now has to be assessed against the current CAP requirements. These are only guidelines, they are not requirements. That is the central problem with the CAP and it is toothless sadly. I cannot see why they have resubmitted if they really don't believe it has a chance to pass this time.

remfan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121283723#Comment_121283723

I cannot see a retrospective blocking of permission once the contracts are in place and the various steps to deliver the actual project have started. Have we seen any projects stopped due to planning at that point before? I don't know of any but would be interested in hearing about them and what drove the change to the approved contract and associated activities.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121284019#Comment_121284019

I cannot see why they have resubmitted if they really don't believe it has a chance to pass this time.

They have no option. They have to keep going until they either get permission or it gets killed completely. The quashing merely meant they had more work to do before one of those results was achieved

This will also need to get past a PSC review, which it may also struggle to do given the costs are likely to be in excess of 2 billion by that stage

timmyntc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121284019#Comment_121284019

If CAP is only guidelines then courts shouldn't have ruled against ABP in the past, but they did. So CAP must be more than guidelines in the eyes of the legal system.

markpb

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121284019#Comment_121284019

TII’s main job is to build roads. This is a road. I’m not sure what it would take to make them abandon it.

Galway’s local authorities are still firmly living in the 80s so they have no idea how to move people that aren’t in a car. They were always going to resubmit it.

KrisW1001

TII is not a roads agency; it's a Transport agency. If Galway Council had wanted light rail and buses, that would have been managed by TII too.

Limerick74

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121284225#Comment_121284225

TII are not involved in providing buses. That’s the NTA.

CatInABox

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121284033#Comment_121284033

If this does get approved by ABP (of which I'm very sceptical of it's chances), then this will be appealed again by FIE, and others. There's a fairly large gap between ABP approval and signing contracts, for this very purpose.

Also, the courts don't really view contracts as binding on themselves, they can make any decision they want, so long as they've got a legal leg to stand on.

markpb

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121284308#Comment_121284308

Their job is to provide and manage transport infrastructure. That means motorways and light rail but not heavy rail because politics/unions? and not Bus Connects for some other reason. Pretty much all the Luas projects are stalled. MetroLink is stuck in AbP limbo. Cork light rail is in political wilderness. So that leaves roads.

marno21

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121284384#Comment_121284384

TII was formed by a merger of the National Roads Authority and the Railway Procurement Authority.

They have a statutory remit to manage the national roads network and the RPA element of their merger sees them taking responsibility for design & planning of light rail projects.* The direction of what light rail projects to develop comes from the NTA. Heavy rail design and planning is done by Irish Rail at the direction of the NTA. Transport plans, BusConnects, which rail projects should be developed is the job of the NTA.

* for example, out of the GDA Transport Strategy devised by the NTA, TII are working on planning for MetroLink (a light rail project), Luas Finglas/Lucan/Poolbeg/Bray. Out of the CMATS transport strategy, TII are working on planning for the Cork Luas project. The engineering side of things is contained within TII, but the ultimate high level strategy on what projects proceed comes from the NTA.

remfan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121284078#Comment_121284078

I understand that the ABP were supposed to consider the updated CAP as part of the planning review process. That doesn’t mean that the CAP contains anything that is legally binding. The CAP is being challenged now because it doesn’t oblige achievement of the guidelines therein. Why do that if the CAP provides the means to enforce the guidelines. It’s a Catch-22.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121284662#Comment_121284662

Don't get too hung up on the CAP being referred to, a lot use it as shorthand (myself included) for the various policies and legislation that all go towards the same goal of zero emissions.

For example, the main act is the 2015 Climate Action & Low Carbon Development Act, this is the legally binding one. The CAP's are how we achieve that. (The initial FIE case was against the 2017 Plan). You also have the 2018 National Adaptation Framework, the 2019 Sectoral & Local Authority Adaptation Strategies, Carbon Budgets, Marine Area Consents, as well as many others (National Planning Framework etc), which have all been updated to align with the main goal e.g. the reduction in emissions.

As for legally binding, the emission reductions are 100% legally binding so any granting of permission has to be in line with those reduction targets. In the case of this road it must achieve emission reductions, a transition to sustainable transport modes, prevent sprawl etc

This does the exact opposite. This is why I personally don't see it getting over the line. Maybe it might (and thats a BIG might) squeeze past ABP, but I think it has no chance if it ends up before the courts

Norteño

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121284821#Comment_121284821

Mod: Deleted as offensive.

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