Ballinasloe Town Team SEC

Ballinasloe Town Team

[Redacted: Personal Information]

30 July 2021

Draft Galway County Development Plan 2022-2028 Consultation

Planning Department,

Galway County Council,

Áras an Chontae,

Prospect Hill,

Galway.

To whom it may concern,

I, Anita Killeen, on behalf of the Ballinasloe Town Team SEC welcome the opportunity to make a submission in respect of the Draft Galway County Development Plan 2022-2028.

Ballinasloe Town Team are a sub-group of the Ballinasloe Area Community Development (BACD)

They are a progressive active committee promoting the development of Ballinasloe and its hinterlands to reach its potential. It was formed over 6 years ago and to date a number of successful projects have been carried out including the building and maintenance of the new town website, www.ballinasloe.ie,the establishment of Ballinasloe Zombie Walk. Ballinasloe Christmas Illuminations Project, & The “People of the Year” awards. We believe in fostering community spirit have a very good working relationship with our public representatives including Cllr. Evelyn Parsons and Senator Aisling Dolan.

In 2020 the Town Team began their Sustainable Energy Community journey and are now ready to start their Energy Master Plan (EMP). David O Loughlin, Assistant Engineer, Environment Dept, Galway CoCo played a key role as the lead financial partner for funding for our EMP. We are delighted to be involved in this collaboration and are encouraged by the support from our local Authority.

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Globally low carbon and renewable energy support the need to address climate change by reducing global emissions. SEC’s contribute to regional/national energy targets and reduce society’s environmental impact.

The Town Team SEC (TT SEC) has ambitious plans to become a low carbon urban community and develop renewable energy to ultimately have community owned power.

The TT SEC team is a highly motivated committee and are just entering a 3 year partnership agreement with ORS Energy Management Consultants. The EMP will be complete by Q1 2022 – this will provide us with a comprehensive overview of energy consumption and energy generation in Ballinasloe. It will include details about the energy base line, including, sources of energy consumed by fuel types, cost of energy used and total primary energy used per annum. Following this an integral part of the EMP is the development of a Register of Opportunities (ROO)

The ROO will provide a 5-year sustainable energy roadmap for the Ballinasloe SEC to include;

- A roadmap (broken down into yearly targets) for energy retrofit of residential and non-residential buildings in the area, with the potential to reduce energy usage in all buildings by 30% within the next 5 years.

- Transport, including fuel used in the study area, in cars, freight and public transport.

- List potential projects for energy efficiency and renewable energy measures

At community level we want to ensure our residents have enhanced comfort and health from living/working in energy efficient buildings, benefit from financial and energy savings, boost local employment and support community development.

The SEC is keen to explore the use of solar power.

We are very fortunate to have the River Suck which meanders around our town. The banks of the River Suck would provide an ideal location to establish a renewable energy demonstration project - a very effective way of introducing solar energy to the community and increasing acceptance levels. It will be on a small scale initially, 6/8 solar panels, which will introduce the concept of, and promote the benefits of solar energy being very passive, with no noise or pollution.

It will empower our community to ultimately aim towards generating our own renewable energy project which will be owned, operated and controlled by the community.

The SEC believes this is a very exciting time to deliver key climate change projects within our community and look to our local authority, Galway County Council for leadership and direction. The County Development Plan (CDP) should be the vehicle to drive this change.

We were disappointed with the clear lack of a defined plan set out in the Draft Galway Development Plan 2022-2028. The document purely takes a narrative form with no specific projects or timelines defined.