Council turns down British marina offers
R and C Reclamation from Durham and the Hertfordshire-based HG Construction Ltd have lodged detailed submissions with Dungarvan Town Council to construct the marina. A submission also received from an Irish concern has been deemed “unfeasible”.
Initially the council reaction to the submissions by the English companies was favourable, but it has emerged the companies want to be given a sizeable section of the Walton Park amenity at the causeway where it is believed they are proposing to construct apartments to part fund construction of the marina.
The town councillors are opposed to any kind of developmental takeover of the picturesque park.
“That is too high a price to pay,” town mayor Michael O’Riordan said.
“If the companies remain insistent that a section of Walton Park must become part of a trade off to get the marina up and running then the whole project will go by the boards.
“As far as I am concerned we won’t allow an inch of one of our most prized amenities to be torn up to facilitate housing, and I know that the vast majority of the townspeople will support our stance.”
Councillor O’Riordan said Walton Park is a valued amenity that is much utilised by the people of Dungarvan and Abbeyside, and to allow apartments to be built on any part of it would be “unforgivable”.
Walton Park is “sacrosanct” as far as the council is concerned and there can be no question now, or in the future, of allowing any part of it to be taken over for developments such as an apartment block, he said.
The standoff between the town council and the two companies would seem to have rendered the marina project “dead in the water” for the foreseeable future, but the mayor does not believe the impasse means Dungarvan will not realise its marina dream.
“We will continue to pursue it as an attainable objective,” Cllr O’Riordan said.
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