Calls to convert Mallow's former sugar beet factory  into a renewable resource

With the site now up for sale, Cork East TD Sean Sherlock wants the State to buy the land

The Greencore sugar factory closed in 2006. Picture: Denis Minihane

The Government should consider buying one of north Cork’s flagship industrial sites to convert into a centre for renewable energy, according to a TD for the area.

Convenience food giant Greencore has put the site of the old sugar beet factory in Mallow up for sale, 17 years after it closed, the Irish Examiner revealed earlier this month.

More than 200,000 tons of white sugar was produced annually at the sugar factory in Mallow, with around 30,000 beet growers at one point, and hundreds of employees from the area.

It was closed in 2006 under a European Commission scheme aiming to phase out unprofitable sugar production but it emerged in 2010 from EU auditors that the figures used to justify its closure were flawed, and that it may have shut needlessly. 

More than 300 employees lost their jobs around the time of the closure.

Greencore has put the site up for sale with a €2.2m guide price for the two tranches of land with more than 145 acres.

Cork East TD Sean Sherlock told the Dáil that the State should step in and buy the land with a view to providing renewable energy.

Factory 'once a stalwart'

The sugar factory in Mallow “was once a stalwart and part of the backbone of Irish industrial policy” before being sold to Greencore and privatised, he said.

“We lost the sugar industry and now the Greencore site in Mallow is up for sale. I am calling on the State to retake or purchase that site and bring it back into State ownership to try to animate some sort of industrial policy that will serve towns like Mallow and its rural hinterland to create jobs...

"I see no reason, at a time when there is much deliberation about energy policy, you could not use a site like the Greencore site at Mallow as a key reference point for alternative energy creation, for instance,” he said.

According to agents, Lisney, the site has potential for renewable energy industry such as solar power.

“The property represents a superb development opportunity for a variety of potential uses including industrial and residential development, subject to planning permission.

"The property may also have potential for green energy uses such as a solar farm,” it said.