Plans have been submitted to Galway County Council for the next stage of works on a new area of harbour at Ros a Mhíl for smaller boats.
The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine is seeking planning permission for Phase 3 of the development of a new small craft harbour just to the north of the existing harbour facilities at Ros a Mhíl.
The full development a harbour with 77 berths, of which 63 will be standard berths for boats up to 8m in length, and 14 will be heavy duty berths for 8-11m vessels.
The small craft harbour will be made from floating pontoon units designed to rise and fall with the tide, and restrained with steel piles driven into the seabed.
The full works involved in the this project will consist of approximately 18,400m³ of soft material to be dredged and bedrock blasting.
A section of foreshore to the northeast of the new harbour area will be permanently reclaimed for the construction of a rock revetment to protect the access road.
This will be followed by the installation of the harbour, and the addition of 40 parking spaces. From the sea access to the new harbour will be from the southwest via the existing 20m wide channel.
From the land, a new two way access road with a boundary wall and a card access gate will be built for traffic to get to the berths.
Currently Ros a Mhíl Harbour possesses two large piers used for fish landing, and the commercial berthing of fishing vessels, as well as three ferry pontoons to the east of those piers, mainly used for transport to and from the Aran Islands.
For smaller vessels, there are two existing small craft harbours for smaller fishing boats, works boats, and leisure boats, but they are now at full capacity.
Phase 1 of this development has already been completed, and Phase 2 is currently under construction.
Phase 3, which this application relates to, consists of the approach road, car park, footpath, and floating pontoons.
Galway County Council is due to make a decision on this planning application by April 28.
