Galway Bay FM
12 May 2021
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Galway Bay fm newsroom – Claregalway student Cian Dalton has won the overall award – Engineers Ireland West Project Award – at the annual GMIT Mechanical and Industrial Student Expo 2021.
Cian’s winning entry was a prototype of a water surface waste cleaner robot which can be used to safeguard against ecological degradation in waters and rivers
Cian now has direct entry into the Engineers Ireland – Innovative Student of the Year competition.
There were several category winners from Galway among the nationwide 85 entries
Shauna Keaveney from Dunmore won the Biomedical Engineering category winner for her design of a Lumbar Implant
Trees to go in north Ōrewa
A stand of native trees at the back of this property is under threat as the site is developed.
The owner and developer of the land, 16 Forest Glen in north Ōrewa, is Coastal Properties Ōrewa.
The company purchased the site, zoned Mixed Housing Urban, last October for $1.3m.
It is in the process of demolishing an existing bach and building three new homes.
Company director Brendan Coughlan says he will “try to keep as many of the native trees at the back of the site as possible”.
However, neighbours are concerned that several could be felled, including mature rimu.
Development progress on the Coast
Thirty-four homes are planned for the former bus depot at 188 Centreway Road, Ōrewa. Project manager Nigel Williams says that the concept for the 0.5ha site involves a combination of apartments, shops and villas. He says resource consent has been granted and around 85 percent have been sold off the plans. Work is expected to begin soon, subject to final Auckland Council signoffs, Mr Williams says.
The 84.5ha Ara Hills development on the western side of the Grand Drive motorway exit in northern Ōrewa, is making progress. There are six stages to this development, with a total of 575 homes consented to be built. Construction is underway for Stage 1, 142 lots (pictured), and this stage is already 90 percent sold. Developer A V Jennings expects to release Stage 2, around 70 lots, mid-year.
Midlands Correspondent
The building of the original Shannonbridge Power Station in Co Offaly in the early 1960s was the third major development undertaken in the midlands as part of the then government s vision for not only creating employment in the region but dealing with an international oil crisis.
Authors Owen Denneny and John P Larkin, in their book A Path Through the Bog , published in 1995, said the late taoiseach Sean Lemass saw a solution that would resolve both the fuel and the job crisis.
It was with this in mind that he had appointed a Board of Directors with Todd Andrews as Managing Director of Bord na Móna over ten years previously. Their brief was to produce sufficient turf to supply Dublin with alternative fuel to substitute for coal, which we could no longer import, due to the war. They called this board, The Turf Development Board , and it would later extend to other counties, Larkin and Denneny wrote.