CONSTRUCTION ON the €530 million Gort to Tuam route is due to begin next year under a public private partnership (PPP) scheme that will add a further 57km of high-quality roadway on the Atlantic Corridor route.
In preparation for the major development, a derelict house has to be renovated and an underground chamber built to protect bats at Coole Park, near Gort, Co Galway along the route of the next phase of the corridor. This work will cost €90,000.
Galway County Council yesterday confirmed it had signed a contract with Duane Construction Ltd for €89,754 to construct artificial bat roots in Coole Park, which is a Special Area of Conservation.
Coole Park is a State-owned Nature Reserve of 1,000 acres and was celebrated by Nobel Prize winning poet WB Yeats.
It was also the home of Lady Augusta Gregory, dramatist, folklorist and a co-founder of the Abbey Theatre.
The works are to include the renovation of a derelict house and construction of an underground chamber within the grounds of Coole Park in the townland of Garrylands. The council confirmed work is scheduled to begin in early January and will take 13 weeks.
The construction is part of the Gort to Oranmore phase of the road scheme.
The plan to start work next year follows the contractor of the Ennis bypass, Gama Construction Ltd, building a secret bat-house and a restored bat-house along the route of the bypass to conserve the Lesser Horseshoe Bat.
Tina Aughney, of Bat Conservation Ireland, said yesterday Coole Park was “a gem” of a site in terms of being a very important feeding, roosting and maternity site for the EU-protected Lesser Horseshoe Bat in the south Galway area.
