Plans are in the works for a new residential development at Ardrahan South which will involve demolishing an agricultural building on site and constructing a 23 unit housing estate.
According to a report prepared by Brendan Slevin & Associates Chartered Engineers, this planing application is for phase one of a housing development which ultimately consist of 36 homes.
The greenfield site at Ardrahan village fronts directly onto R458 Gort to Kilcolgan regional road, which will be used to access the estate.
The proposed plans are for detached houses consisting of three main design variants which have been laid out to be in keeping with “a low density village environment”.
Its intended that the estate will be served by a communal wastewater disposal facility and a shared utility building.
The Ardrahan Group Water Scheme wrote in concerning the plans to say they were not opposed to the development in principle, but had concerns about possible water contamination.
The GWS noted that the proposed wastewater disposal site for the housing estate is close by several of their boreholes in the area, while a report compiled on the group’s behalf by the Geological Survey of Ireland said the karst landscape in the area makes it difficult to predict where groundwater will flow.
It’s intended that the wastewater disposal system for the development will be designed and maintained by the Wexford based Molloy Engineering, with proposals to seek a 20 year contract.
There are a significant number of ringforts/cashels and souterrains in the surrounding countryside, with more than 20 recorded monuments within 1km of the development according to an initial archaeological assessment by Dominic Delaney & Associates for the developer.
They said that there is “no known archaeology located on the development site and no previously unrecorded archaeological material or potential archaeological material was observed during site inspection”.
They did however recommend that a geophysical survey of the site should be carried out before any work begins.
The Department of Arts, Heritage, and the Gaeltacht was more stringent and said that the development is an area of “high archaeological potential” and may contain “extensive and significant archaeological deposits”.
The department has recommended that further investigations of the site should be carried out to allow for an Archaeological Impact Assessment to be carried out before a decision is made.
Galway county council is due to make a decision on this planning application by April 3.
