Galway City Council has rejected a planning application to expand a car park on the Headford Road.
Cleverson Ltd sough permission for an expansion to an existing temporary car park next to the IMC Cinema which would have added 94 additional parking spaces.
On top of the existing car park Cleverson also owned an undeveloped plot of land directly in front of the cinema which were separated by another patch of land.
The developer said that it only recently acquired this land, which led to this planning application to the city council.
“It is the applicant’s intention to establish an interim use for the greater site area in order to remove the opportunity and likelihood for antisocial behaviour which has become problematic and extremely prevalent withing these two vacant plots in recent times,” the application stated.
“This ongoing antisocial behaviour was evinced during a recent site clean up which involved the removal of a full large skip of bottles and cans, old shopping trolleys, broken pallets, litter, discarded clothes”
Also uncovered during the clean up were “several rounds of ammunition and smoke grenades which had to be dealt with by Army Ordinance and Gardaí.”
The city council ultimately turned down the developer’s plans.
