North Quays met with "significant delays" according to council executive

The North Quays Development in Waterford City has been met with significant delays in recent years according to a Waterford City and County Council executive.

Director of Services for Economic Development with the council, Michael Quinn, was responding to councillors questions at a recent plenary meeting of the local authority held in Dungarvan.

Hopcast Limited submitted a planning application for the development in June 2024, seeking to construct a mixed use development on the North Quays site in Ferrybank.

The application includes phase one of the project consisting of nine apartment blocks, basement car parks, a podium connecting a sustainable transport bridge at the Central Plaza, a riverside promenade and a cycleway alongside other associated site works.

Waterford Council subsequently sought further information in relation to the project in July 2024, with the developer submitting the requested documentation in February 2025.

A decision on the development is expected in the coming weeks, however, some local councillors have questioned the cost associated with consultancy fees incurred by Waterford City and County Council.

Plenary meeting discussions

Councillors raised questions around the development at a recent plenary meeting of the local authority.

Councillor Joeanne Bailey asked if two hotels were still included in the plans, however, Director of Services for Planning, Ivan Grimes said he cannot comment on a live application.

Independent Councillor Donal Barry asked what costs have been incurred by Waterford Council for consultancy fees relating to the project.

Cllr. Donal Barry mentioned at the meeting that it was noted in a report from 2023, that additional costs were incurred by the local authority.

“The author in the report for 2023 outlined the cost of the consultancy fees on the North Quays. There were 110 design variations to part of the scheme. Considering the cost, we had to seek legal advice. Can we have a brief on the legal opinion on the extra costs and the contract agreement?

“Did our own team deem that 110 different changes were necessary? Or after a couple of these changes, did our own team say to BAM that we need to agree on a final or a near final design that we can’t keep coming back with all these changes and the costs are rising? Can we be briefed on the investigation into the costs there? And since then, has there been any extra costs with regard to the consultancy fees on the North Quays? “

Director of Services for Economic Development with the council, Michael Quinn responded saying the project itself was delayed in recent years, however costs were saved in certain aspects of the overall project.

“The legal advice that we sought was to make sure that we were compliant with procurement because of the changes in value associated with the design works. The main issues in terms of that, again, have been articulated to you. There’s been a significant prolongation of the project. It started in 2018. It was supposed to be a four-year project.

“Circumstances, including COVID, made that completely unachievable. We have dealt with the changes as they’ve come up. One of the other factors is we have gone through two significant different development proposals, which is driving changes across a whole range of areas.

“We’ve also had to deal with the flood defence issue right across the board, as opposed to just in the immediate vicinity of the site. There’s been a range of changes. I’m quite happy to share more detail on that, but for the scale of project, the prolongation of the project, both the level of changes and the fees are not unreasonable.

“I appreciate somebody looking at it from the outside would not quite understand that, but this is one of the most complex regeneration projects in the country at the moment. The complexity does lead to cost and some design changes. Some of those design changes were also brought forward to try and optimise the cost of construction.

“In some cases, there were significant reductions because we identified better ways or cheaper ways of executing the construction programme. I can provide a little bit more detail on it, but I think, you know, within reason, the current situation is satisfactory from our point of view. We had no issues from the point of view of the legal advice. It was related to procurement.”

Sustainable Transport Bridge

The river foundation works for the sustainable transport bridge are largely complete according to Waterford Council. This includes the permanent concrete river piers and abutments, and four large temporary steel support frames have also been installed in the river between the permanent piers.

Upon completion, the individual deck sections will be transported by sea barge to Waterford. The separate deck sections weigh up to 300 tonnes and will be lifted by self-propelled platform trucks onto sea barges which will then be towed by canal from Ghent out to the North Sea en route to Waterford.

A large 900 tonne, 60m high, floating sheerleg crane will travel by sea from Belgium to complete the lifting and installation of the bridge in Waterford.

The arrival of the bridge is expected in the coming weeks.

Check out Kristof Katai’s video below, with the latest shots of the North Quays project.