'A significant milestone': Permanent home secured for two Cork schools
Local TD Aindreas Moynihan at the site where the new schools will have a permanent home.
Designs for two new schools which are operating from temporary accommodation in a Cork town are set to be fast-tracked after An Bórd Pleanála confirmed a compulsory purchase order (CPO) to deliver a permanent home for them both.
The decision to approve without modifications Cork City Council’s CPO of the 15-acre site in Lisheens, on the western outskirts of Ballincollig, brings to an end long-term efforts by the Department of Education over many years to secure a site for the schools.
The decision was made this week almost 10-months after the board held an oral hearing into the CPO which is designed to accommodate Gaelscoil an Chaisleáin and Le Chéile secondary school on the same site.
The gaelscoil has been operating from prefabs on the grounds of the town’s rugby club since 2017. Le Chéile, which opened in 2021 in the former Cork Film Centre building near the town’s GAA club, is currently operating from prefabs on a site behind Ballincollig Community School.
The CPO of the site was contested but in his report, board inspector Jimmy Green concluded that the CPO was being pursued for a legitimate objective in the public interest.
He said following a site inspection earlier this year he was satisfied that an abandoned house on the site is “unfit for human habitation and is not capable of being rendered fit for human habitation at reasonable cost”.
He said he was satisfied that the CPO and its effects on the property rights of affected landowners are “proportionate to that objective and justified by the exigencies of the common good”.
And he said the objections could not be sustained having regard to the necessity.
Le Chéile principal Nicola Barrett welcomed the news, describing it as another step in the right direction. She said their new school will be delivered through the ADAPT programme - Accelerated Delivery of Architectural Planning and Tendering.
“An external project manager, who has been appointed, will co-ordinate and drive the design team to achieve the best possible timeframe during the stages of architectural planning. This will ensure the timeframe is as short as possible,” she said.
She also thanked parents for placing their trust in the school especially given the uncertainty around their long-term accommodation.
“We very much look forward to providing top-class facilities for both our current and future students,” she said.
Fianna Fáil TD Aindreas Moynihan also welcomed confirmation of the CPO.
“This has been an objective of the Department of Education for several years and the decision to approve the CPO is a very significant milestone in the journey to provide a campus for these schools. There is still a lot of work to be done but at least we now have secured a site for the schools, and the department can proceed now at pace with providing them,” he said.] The Department of Education told the oral hearing that additional school accommodation is required for approximately 1,600 pupils across the primary and post-primary sectors in the town, which has five primary and three second-level schools.
The department plans to build a 24-classroom primary school, with special education needs class-bases, ancillary accommodation, ballcourts and junior play areas, and a post-primary school with “long-term projected enrolment of 1,000 pupils” on the Lisheens site.
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