Masterplan needed for community and sporting sites in Dundalk says Louth councillor

Cllr Shane McGuinness is calling for a masterplan for community and sporting sites around south Dundalk, and believes Louth County Council should extend the boundary of the town from its current location at Greengates.

Cllr McGuinness was speaking to the Dundalk Democrat following the Dundalk Municipal District October meeting and said that while he thinks the “sports centre in Muirhevnamor and that whole area is a magnificient project”, he feels that there is “too much emphasis being put on a specific area, purely because it's an easy project for Louth County Council because they own that land.”

The Fianna Fáil councillor said that “my worry is that I don't think that we're thinking outside the box and we're [not] forward thinking.

“I'm calling on the Council for the up and coming County Development Plan to think ahead, to look at areas to the east side of the Red Barns Road and the east side of the Blackrock Road, but more significantly, the Haggardstown area, where I'm extremely worried about the level of construction and building, and absolutely no land banks held in any way by the Council for a park.”

Read also: Louth’s Tholsel restoration wins Murdoch Award

Cllr McGuinness continued, “I think that now is the time to think about the land, for building up their land bank. It's not going to get any cheaper. Even buying bits of slightly wetland, even flooded areas - it could be sensible to buy some of this land because it can be used as park land or pitches or ground like that. I don't see any efforts or any will within the Council to think that far ahead.”

Cllr McGuinness went on to say that, “if you think about it, there's no real numbers being built in them areas”, adding that he believes the areas where money and investments are being put, are not the areas where population growth is taking place.

“The land to the east side of the Blackrock Road, around the Loakers, that's land we should be looking at purchasing, and also land around the Haggardstown area. Because it's all privately owned land.”

Cllr McGuinness also added that Louth County Council should be looking to extend the boundary of Dundalk. “There was one time that the town boundary went out to the Fane River on the Dublin Road”, he explained, “and now it's brought back to the Greengates, and I don't know why because what that's doing is it's again stopping us from thinking ahead.

“We're expanding, so if the town boundary is going out to the Greengates why is it not going out to the river? Why are we not thinking about all that land that's sitting there idle? While all the sports clubs are crying out for land.

“I think that's something that we should be saying”, he added, stressing the need for a masterplan, “without just concentrating solely on one spot is something that I think that the Council need to seriously consider. I just don't think there's forward thinking on it, I really don't.”