The Mayor of Athlone Municipal District, Cllr. Frankie Keena, has informed the Athlone Advertiser this week that Westmeath County Council has gone to tender to source a contractor to carry out work on the Private Kelly Memorial Town Park in Moate, with the desired hope that the relevant personnel will be chosen by the end of February, or early March.
“I have received a lot of representations in relation to the dilapidated state of this park and more recently from Cian Whitney, Junior Mayor of St. Oliver Plunkett Boys National School and his fellow students, who outlined their deep annoyance and concern about the state of this public area.
“The planned work will first consist of the laying of a gas membrane along the boundary of the old town dump and adjoining land. The site of the former dump will be levelled, capped with topsoil and seeded to turn it into a playing football surface. This development, on completion, will be suitable and cater for the needs of Moate Celtic football club who has shown interest in this ground for a long time. Before this work could be carried out, the local authority had to receive a certificate of authorisation from the Environmental Protection Agency and a grant of €120k has now been received from the Department of the Environment for this work,” Cllr. Keena commented.
According to the prominent elected representative, work on this park is now long overdue.
“It is ten years since the playground was put in place under phase one. As it stands, this playground is isolated and in a terrible state and it is not a very attractive public are for parents to bring their children. It needs an urgent revamp and to be relocated close to the memorial garden. Unfortunately, this contract work does not involve doing any work with the playground, but it will bring more activity and footfall of people to this park.
“All avenues for funding need to be urgently considered to bring this playground up to an acceptable standard. If all fails under the final phase for this park, the Council are considering selling some adjoining land for a small number of houses and should such an occurrence arise, it is imperative that this playground is enhanced from the proceeds,” Mayor Keena concluded.
