Quay’s ‘marine related tourism’ status in question

SITE NOTICE The planning site notice is pictured on railings which run around the site at Roman Island.

Áine Ryan

SUBMISSIONS about the proposed plan to develop Portwest’s Global Head Office at Westport Quay may be made to Mayo County Council until next Wednesday, August 29. Details of the development may also be inspected at the county council’s planning office in Áras an Chontae. That is because the development contravenes the Westport Town Development and Environs Plan 2010-2016, which remains a statutory document until a new plan is devised.
Mayo County Council placed an advertisement in the Irish Independent on August 2 last  giving notice to consider granting the material contravention, under stipulations of the Planning and Development Act 2000-2018.
In the town plan, this area at the Quay is designated ‘Marine Related Tourism’ whilst ‘regarding the existing natural and built environment’. The plan states: “Land uses generally permitted in this zone include tourist accommodation, open space, small scale retail units for the sale of marine related goods, sailing club, restaurants, public houses, marina, pontoons, moorings, boat yards, bathing facilities, public utilities, parking, information boards and sporting and leisure facilities.”
It also also states that it was an objective of the council to ‘encourage and provide for marine related community, sport, tourism and leisure facilities and to provide public access to the waters edge at Roman Island’, where it would also create a bathing area and a lagoon. At a public meeting in Feburary 2012, Mayo County Council architect, Simon Wall outlined short- and medium-term plans for the Quay. In the interim, significant upgrading works on the layout of pathways and the roads have been carried out. Other proposals were ‘an open-air amphitheatre, a proper boat parking facility, the dredging of the harbour, the building of a break-water for a marina, the creation of a lagoon, a beach and a cycleway’.
“In essence we must re-establish the integral relationship between Westport Quay and the ocean,” Simon Wall said at the 2012 meeting.

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