As reported in the Dundalk Democrat, The Dundalk Leader and on Louth Live: Calls for former dump site in Dundalk to be developed into sports hub - Louth Live
Olympic-fever is in the air and we’ve been treated to the worlds’ best, which this year included plenty of Irish! Ireland punches above its weight in the Olympics. If you use the metric of per capita to medals, we’ve had a great year. If you look at the investment per capita, we are defying the odds. But it’s important that we don’t let success despite poor backing, continue to excuse a severe underfunding of sporting outlets in general.
Dundalk has a perfect site for a top-notch community sporting facility, the old dump lands opposite St Helena’s/Jimmy Bellew Park.
Although it is currently zoned as Open Space, it is fenced-off and out of bounds to the public. Pitches, a permeable running track and some athletics facilities would transform this into a sporting jewel for the town. Ideally there would be scope to look at the demand for other emerging sporting facilities, like skateboarding and basketball too.
It’s a win on so many levels. This site can’t be developed with buildings because it won’t support heavy foundations, but it’s settled plenty for pitches and sports. In fact, it was mooted back in the early noughties, that something like this could be accomplished in a matter of years, but the vision has faltered.
Using it for sporting facilities would maintain an important barrier with the river and in effect, provide an extension of green space to St Helena’s Park, hugging both sides of the river.
St Helena’s Park is an excellent facility, and the riverwalk loop has been a very positive step in embracing the geography of the river. Yet, our two primary parks, are pockets of green from British planned parks: I’d love to see us make a bold step towards providing for the next generations and the next one hundred years, by committing to putting the old dump land into public use.
The population of the town has increased. North of the river is one of the noticeable locations of mass development in recent years. Only last week, people would have learned of the planning approval for 205 new homes on the Lisdoo Road, joining the sprawl of contemporary estates out that road. Unfortunately, are very few outlets for young people out that way, teenagers in particular.
I commend, and often use, the facilities at Dundalk Sports Centre, Muirhevnamor. Something like that is a model to follow for the other side of town: a community facility that can be used by all clubs, teams, schools. Across the town and county, there are lots of clubs and teams crying out for space, resources and facilities. It may not be feasible to finance each and every one of them, to pick just a few and to give them everything they want, would raise questions of fairness. In practice, what happens is a lot of clubs get a sliver of capital grants to make bit-by-bit improvements, or to get by, but without creating real marquee facilities to push sports on.
I know from playing and coaching football, that the supply of good quality pitches does not meet the demand. Many clubs are doing their bit and have womens’ teams, multiple underage boys’ and girls’ teams, swelling the demand on facilities. We have an immense voluntary sports sector in this country, let’s make it easier for them to do what they love.
Of course, Ireland being Ireland, it rains! While the overall rainfall may be comparable year on year, there seems to be in increase in the intensity of the rain, which can cancel events and waterlog playing pitches. Certainly another all-weather pitch, would help competitions and clubs keep the show on the road.
I can imagine this being a hub of activity, with schools using it during the day and clubs and organisations using it in the evening.
As a town, we are sports mad. When our county or club is doing well it gives the whole place a lift. At the moment, we’re all so proud to have seen Kate O’Connor compete in the heptathlon in Paris, becoming Dundalk’s first female Olympian and Ireland’s first Olympic Heptathlete. We have discussions every Olympics about the need to invest in sports and athletics!
I hope we don’t have many more Olympic cycles where we bemoan the lack of facilities locally. I’d really love to see a space where anyone can present, participate and improve in their chosen field – without having to go to Dublin to trial it. It would be great to get some momentum to secure funding to make it a reality. I can tell you, that any investment will be paid back in buckets in the improvements in health and social benefits.
