Transformed Kinnegad by summer 2024, says Leonard

The Kinnegad that will exist in the summer of 2024 is going to have a lot more to offer for its residents than has been the case up to this, and, says local councillor, Denis Leonard, it’s about time.

“There are 3000 people living here,” the Labour man told the Westmeath Examiner, as he listed the range of projects that will transform the profile of the area – including provision of a much-longed-for skate park.

Topping the list of new developments is, however, the new library and training centre that is to open at the old national school building on the main street – but also of significance is the provision of a new town park, and work on both those is set to be complete before next summer.

“The construction firm moved on site at the old national school in the summer,” Cllr Leonard said.

“They had a small bit of delay with you know some things such as wildlife directives that they had to make sure were right, but now they have moved on to full construction and Deirdre Reilly of Westmeath County Council, who is over the rural regeneration team, tells me that at the moment they’re on course for a May 2020 completion date.”

The new library development is taking place at a picturesque red-brick building dating to 1893.

“It’s historic, so the front facade will be kept the same and most of the development will be to the rear, with a corridor up the middle for the library. There will be an adult education centre with the Longford Westmeath Education Training Board (LWETB), meeting rooms, which are vital for the town, which has no kind of community hall at the moment, although the GAA have been very supportive in lending meeting rooms.”

A long-standing bone of contention for Cllr Leonard is that there is no post primary school in Kinnegad – which is why he is particularly happy that there is to be an adult education centre in the new library complex. Separately, moves are also afoot to reopen Serenity House for the use of the elderly in the community and to house a Women’s Shed that is being formed.

The town park is another development locals are looking forward to, Cllr Leonard says, adding that the work is to be done by council staff: “That’s happening in the final quarter of this year and quarter one of next year, to be completed by April or May of next year.

“There’s going to be a lovely landscaped park with trees, walkways, benches and a new playground, and I’m pushing hard for a disability swing and some of that type of equipment not available at the other playground.

“There’s going to be a half basketball court, and a skate park, which is what people voted for under community consultation.”

The town park will be on the old Athlone Road, at the site of the old parish hall, which is earmarked for demolition.

Funding has been allocated under the Town Renewal Scheme to 20 local businesses to give their premises facelifts: “The businesses pay a certain amount of the cost and the grant pays the rest, so they have all their shop fronts done up – including a few of the derelict ones that got involved, so it means that the whole town has been brightened up.”

Cllr Leonard was bemused when one person in the area compared it to a Swiss village: “I’m not sure we are quite there yet, but certainly the town looks so much better,” he laughs.

Other work to improve the streetscape has included new benches on the main streets and brackets on light posts for hanging baskets.

In addition, the river park at the eastern end of the village has had a full-sized basketball court installed, Cllr Leonard continues: “A final thing that we’ve been pushing for years in Kinnegad is a looped walk that would let people use the Boreen Bradach safely: it used to emerge on the Killucan Road and you had a kilometre to walk on a busy main road with no footpath.

“Now, through the Outdoor Recreation Fund, we have a footpath as far as the Boreen Bradach, which means you can walk back into town on a wide path and cycleway.

“The main reason that’s a brilliant thing is 200-300 young people go out every week to the soccer field that way to Kinnegad Juniors, located right at the end of wherever that footpath finishes now, so it means before they were out on the main road walking or cycling as they went from the town out to the soccer field; now they can walk on a demarcated path.”