March target date for sports centre application

Westmeath County Council are aiming to submit an application for planning permission for a new regional sports centre at Blackhall Place and Robinstown in March of 2025, a senior official on the council’s Council Regeneration and Capital Projects team, Anne-Marie Corroon has revealed.

Addressing members of the Municipal District of Mullingar Kinnegad at their monthly meeting in Mullingar last week, Ms Corroon said that at Blackhall there is to be a 25 metre swimming pool and also an 8x16 metre teaching pool with a movable floor, a splash pad and a health suite. In the sports hall there are to be 12 badminton or three basketball courts, a gym, offices and consultation rooms.

The proposal for Robinstown is for a number of football pitches, paddle tennis courts and possibly an outdoor basketball court together with a building that will house a boxing facility and also the dressing rooms for the flood-lit pitches.

The facilities were decided following a consultation that had input from more 600 residents, 44 sports organisations, 10 local schools, and a sports needs assessment.

Cllr Denis Leonard admitted to having misgivings about the wisdom of bringing such a large project as the swimming pool into the centre of Mullingar, predicting that it would lead to traffic congestion problems.

Cllr Aoife Davitt asked for insight into progress on sourcing funding for the projects and on timelines for development of the projects. She also asked had the council any plans to provide additional parking for users of the pool.

Cllr Alfie Devine was also concerned about car parking spaces, adding that while he was impressed with it, in his view a place of the scale of the swimming pool should have been on the outskirts of Mullingar.

Cllr Mick Dollard said, given that he understood the cost for the project is estimated at €75 million, his view was that the right decision had been made bringing the swimming pool element into town as part of the Blackhall regeneration plan. He did not foresee a problem with parking given the number of parking spaces available at Gaol Hill, he said.

However, he added, a plan should be drawn up for the Robinstown area because there is a lot of land there that would be suitable for housing.

Cllr Emily Wallace was also keen to have an indication on timelines. “People have this notion that they’re [going to be] seeing this in two years or three years: that’s not the case – and we have to be honest with people that this is going to take time,” she said.

Mullingar mayor, Cllr Ken Glynn, said he too had reservations about locating the swimming pool, in Mullingar town centre given the issues that exist in town in terms of traffic and parking.

He said the thinking on the subject among the general public is “very mixed”.

“There’s a lot of people who don’t see the merit in having the pool in Blackhall given the various issues. Then there’s other people that really want to see it in the town and will take it anywhere, so, you know, you have a quandary there and it’s a difficult situation,” he said.

“But if it does finally end up at this location, there has to be a serious rethink and that involves probably tearing up the traffic plan – as I said when this was first announced – and starting over again.”

Responding to the queries on funding and timelines, Ms Corroon said the council have the architects on board to take the projects through the feasibility and conceptual design and then the preliminary design and planning stages.

“We’re funding that ourselves at the moment,” she said, stating that no official confirmation has yet been received on the funding that will be required to take the project through the detailed design process.

However, once that process is complete, the next stage will be enabling works and practical construction.

“We intend to progress the planning for Robinstown and the complex here in Blackhall separately as two separate part eight planning processes so each project will then operate separately,” she said, adding that while Robinstown was a simpler development, Blackhall was fund dependent. “We know the price of €75 million is not easy to come by,” she admitted.

Ms Corroon confirmed that the pool would impact on the number of parking spaces available in Blackhall but said the council are undertaking a parking study throughout the town to try to identify alternative parking locations while at the same time maximising the number of parking spaces in Blackhall.

On the issue of the road in Blackhall, she said when the footprint of the building is finalised, the council would liaise with the district and transportation sector to finalise the alignment of the road through Blackhall.

“We’re also liaising with the traffic modellers as well to see what impact it will have on the flow of traffic around the town,” she said.