Town continues 13-year battle for teen play area

After 13 years of battling to build an outdoor table tennis and ball play area for its teenagers, a Cork town council is increasingly worried that funds promised to it by the county council are to be diverted elsewhere.

At the last census there were 525 people aged between 12 and 18 living in Passage West, a town on the outskirts of Cork City. With a 63% increase in housing stock in the town during the boom, the teenage population is expected to grow by over 50% in the next 10 years.

According to the town council, teenagers have little to do there aside from scheduled sports and events at a youth cafe. Ever since a playground was built 13 years ago, the town council has wanted to develop a multi-use games area that would provide a day-long outlet for teenagers. The project received strong support from the local youth club that was being charged to use similar facilities in other towns.

Raising funds wasn’t easy though. Tens of thousands of euro were raised for the games area and playground through collections outside churches and table quizzes. Up to €40,000 funding was ringfenced for it from the town council.

However, another €110,000 was needed. Cork County Council then said its “preference” was that special contributions from the construction of Harbour Heights, a private housing facility, would go towards a single recreation and amenity project in the town. It seemed that the town council’s long-awaited dream would be realised.

However, nine years later, the town council is still waiting for those funds. And now it has been told by other council officials that the money may not be theirs after all but will instead go towards extending a local greenway/cycleway that will stop 2.6km away from the Harbour Heights estate.

In a letter sent to Cork County Council before Christmas, the town council expressed its frustration to assistant county manager Declan Daly. It still hasn’t received a response.

“We readily acknowledge the value of the greenway to the local community and to tourism. But its proposed extension begins 2.6km from Harbour Heights and finishes 7km away. With such desperate need for a youth facility in the town, we cannot reconcile the use of the special contributions for the greenway with the intended use of such contributions within the context of the 2000 Planning and Development Act.”

Passage West town councillor Marcia D’Alton, who has long championed the project said: “We don’t believe that it is legally or morally correct that the greenway should be provided at the expense of local recreational facilities which the contributions were intended to provide.”

At the end of last year, the town council asked that the project be given back to the community, at least in part, so that people could continue fundraising.

The county council refused and said the project would go to tender before Christmas. This still hasn’t happened.

A series of questions about the project were sent to Cork County Council. A spokesman responded that “it has made no decision to allocate funding to the greenway project”.