Nora Barnacle's Galway home, Bowling Green, has been given a reprieve. An Bord Pleanala has turned down an application for a multi-storey carpark and 15 apartments in the medieval heart of the city.
The decision has been welcomed by An Taisce's Galway branch, which says it has effectively "driven a huge hole through Galway Corporation's traffic management policies".
As reported earlier in this column, appeals against the original approval by the corporation had been lodged by the Bowling Green Residents Committee and the select vestry of St Nicholas's Collegiate Church, along with a local resident. The developer, Rubelen Ltd, had also objected to the terms of the approval.
The ruling was taken on the grounds that the proposed development would "by reason of its intensity of use, introduce additional vehicular traffic into the narrow street network" and could create serious traffic congestion and "seriously injure the residential amenities of property in the vicinity."
However, Mr Derrick Hambleton, branch chairman of An Taisce, expressed fears that the local authority's efforts are not dead. The corporation has sought a material contravention of the Galway Borough Development Plan to allow for an automated multi-storey car-park on a site 200 metres from the Rubelen location at Newtownsmyth/Bowling Green.
Mr Hambleton has called on the members of Galway Corporation to work out a permanent strategy to deal with private cars.