Kinnegad ‘needs a proper enterprise centre’
Kinnegad, perched on the edge of two motorways and within easy reach of Dublin and Galway, is a prime location for an industrial business park, says local councillor, Denis Leonard.
At the February meeting of the Mullingar Kinnegad Municipal District, he called for a feasibility study to be carried out and for talks with Enterprise Ireland to re-open.
A feasibility study was carried out in 2020. It focused on vacant and under-utilised buildings that had the potential to yield regional economic gain, an economic enterprise hub encompassing a co-working centre and an enterprise scheme facilitating serviced sites to attract manufacturing, light industrial activity and other activity.
It was decided to proceed at the time with the option of developing a co-working space in a rented premises as that would enable the council to establish enterprise space quickly.
Subsequently, finance was secured through Just Transition Funding and the project will now be delivered at the Master’s House in the town. The other options required further analysis and depend on land acquisition.
Cllr Leonard said that the third aspiration emerging from the feasibility study was the way forward and it was time for that further analysis to be done. He proposed that another feasibility study be done and that the council again write to Enterprise Ireland asking them to have a site visit to look at possibilities in Kinnegad. He acknowledged that the enterprise hub was brilliant, but it was going to be small and doing up the derelict buildings was admirable, but many of them had been there 30 or 40 years and nothing had moved in or out of them except a few rats, unfortunately.
We need to look at having a proper enterprise centre, he stated.
Cllr John Shaw agreed that Kinnegad would be a perfect location for enterprise or offices. "If there was a building in place or land available, the employers would come," he said.
Deirdre Reilly, acting district manager, told the meeting that lands had been identified that were in private ownership and the council had tried to buy them but without success. She said they would revert to Enterprise Ireland, but at the moment they do not have the funds for those sort of purchases. It is on the agenda, she said, but she does not know when they will get to it.