Town council purchase of land to benefit entire community

THE recovery, into public hands, of a strategic town centre site in Skibbereen will benefit the entire community, Mayor Adrian Healy pledged yesterday.

The current owners are about to sell the site, known as the Fair Field, for €2.9 million to Skibbereen Town Council. Mr Healy said the council had put a deposit of €190,000 on the property, which had previously been, for many years, in local authority control.

The 2.1-acre site, part of a property still known locally as the mart yard, was at the centre of a bitter High Court row in the early 1990s. Cork Marts, through changes in the Landlord and Tenant Act, secured ownership from the town council for €3,000 and later sold the entire 3.5 acre site for a reported €3.5 million.