This article is from page 4 of the 2008-11-25 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 4 JPG
ENNIS Town Council should use money secured from development levies to develop the Post Office Field.
That was the view of Fine Gael councillor Johnny Flynn who broad- ly welcomed the proposals outlined in the draft concept plan.
“Significant planning and develop- ment levies have been got by both Clare County Council and Ennis Town Council over the last number of years,” said Cllr Flynn.
He added, “This project is ideally suitable to utilise the amenity recrea- tion portion of unused levies. If the plan is acceptable to all it could be developed in stages subject to fund- ito
Cllr Flynn, however said he was unhappy that a proposal to develop a library was included in the concept plan.
“The library building should be removed from the plan and the pro- posed amenity improvements should be put on public display in order to get the public’s views,’ said Cllr hare
He added “If the library building or any building is built at the Bind- on Street end of the field, important views from Parnell Street car park to Bindon Street and back from Bind- on Street to the river would be lost. These views were deemed important in environmental studies carried out by Brady, Shipman and Martin, in a consultants report to the Council in the 1980s.”
Previous reports and studies have proposed retaining the Post Office Field as an open space in the centre of Ennis accessible to the public.
A total of 21 submissions were re- ceived by Ennis Town Council fol- lowing a public consultation process in 2005 to determine the most appro- priate way to develop the field.
Nine submissions supported allow- ing public access to the field with a
futher three submission also high- lighting the benefits of making the area more accessible. Three submis- sions objected to developing direct public access to the field.
A report prepared by the Town Engineer Tom Tiernan in June 2005 concluded that following the public consultation process “it would be in- appropriate to consider building de- velopment”. He went onto state that
“the Post Office Field should thus be a natural amenity facility to be ap- preciated by the people of Ennis and visitors alike”.
A concept plan for the Ennis Town Centre drawn up in 2004 stated that “the River Fergus and adjacent Post Office Field form the greatest natural assets of Ennis town centre”’.