Castlebar’s €12m Outdoor Pursuits Academy set for 2016 finish

Castlebar’s €12m Outdoor Pursuits Academy set for 2016 finish


Edwin McGreal

The ambitious €12 million National Outdoor Pursuits Academy for Castlebar has a completion date of early 2016, Mayo County Council has stated.
The facility will include a swimming pool, a fitness gym and outdoor pursuits centre at Lough Lannagh and an outdoor full-size running track, a full-size all-weather artificial playing pitch and three full-sized grass playing pitches across from GMIT, at the rear of the halting site on the link road.
In a project update issued last week, the Council states the project is currently at design stage with the expectation that it will be ready for tender in May 2014 with a contractor on site before the end of 2014.
The council anticipate construction will take 15 months. It is a collaborative effort between Mayo County Council, Castlebar Town Council and the Galway/Mayo Institute of Technology.
The pool at Lough Lannagh will be a 25-metre pool. Its size was subject to much argument among Castlebar town councillors, some of whom felt that a 50-metre pool would be more ambitious and financially rewarding to the town.
However, Fine Gael member of Castlebar Town Council and Parliamentary Secretary to An Taoiseach Enda Kenny, Cllr Ger Deere, this week criticised those views as ‘ill-advised’.
“We saw earlier in this project that calls for a 50 metre pool were not only unwise but simply ill-advised tactics. The maintenance alone would have left the town in serious financial difficulty.
“What we now have is a brilliant modern facility that will more than cater to the town’s needs. I am proud, as a Fine Gael councillor, that our Taoiseach has delivered for the town of Castlebar and that we will end up with a world-class centre of excellence of which we can be proud,” he said.