Mayo County Council urged to sell old swimming pool to Castlebar Celtic

CASTLEBAR-based councillors have urged Mayo County Council to sell the old swimming pool in the town to Castlebar Celtic FC for a nominal fee in order to expand the club's facilities.

Castlebar Celtic currently has approximately 300 underage members playing on 26 teams and they do not have enough dressing rooms and toilets at their home ground Celtic Park to cater for their needs.

The club which is in its centenary year recently approached Mayo County Council regarding purchasing the old swimming pool building which is adjacent to Celtic Park as a solution to meet the needs of its expanding membership. The pool has been closed to the public since 2019.

Addressing the monthly meeting of the Castlebar Municipal District, Joe McDonald, Chairman of Castlebar Celtic said that this Saturday, 12 underage teams will be playing at Celtic Park and they don't have the facilities to cater for them.

“Our issue is we have two dressing rooms and three toilets and two of those toilets are in the dressing rooms. We have boys and girls all using the same dressing rooms so it is an absolute nightmare. What we are looking at is somewhere we can house these changing rooms and extra toilets,” he said.

Local councillors vowed to support the club and passed a motion calling for the council to consider selling the swimming pool to the club for a nominal fee of €100.

Fine Gael councillor Cyril Burke who forwarded the motion said that the club does so much work in the community and the onus was on the council to support them.

“They are in a situation where they are landlocked to a certain extent and they cannot expand any further. With all the teams they have they haven't the dressing rooms for the youth to tog out. They have up to 300 boys and girls in their academy up to U16 and it takes some amount of money and voluntary effort to run that.

“In this case to acknowledge the 100 years of Castlebar Celtic and the club they are and what they have achieved there is an onus on us to help the sale of the swimming pool,” he said.

Cllr Burke said that Castlebar Celtic also propose to include a sensory room in the building and they need the building to be in their ownership to apply for government funding.

He was supported by his party colleague Cllr Ger Deere, who said it was a 'no brainer' that the old pool would be sold to Castlebar Celtic. The meeting heard that there are children from 32 nationalities in the club and Cllr Deere complimented them on all the work they do to integrate these children into local society.

“This is a golden opportunity and let's not say it in years to come that we stopped Castlebar Celtic growing for another 100 years,” he said.

A similar proposal was jointly forwarded by Cllr Michael Kilcoyne and Cllr Blackie Gavin where they also called for the sale of the pool to the club but added that the asbestos roof should be removed before any sale goes through.

“It is important that asbestos is dealt with because it will cost a fortune and I don't think the club should bear the cost of that, the county council should bear the cost,” said Cllr Kilcoyne.

Head of the Municipal District, David Mellet said that the building will have to be assessed before he could determine if work needed to be done on the roof. However he admitted that the cost of removing asbestos would be substantial.

Cllr Burke said that putting in clauses regarding the condition of the building will hold up the process and said there should be no strings attached to any sale.

Mr Mellet confirmed that he received a request from Castlebar Celtic to purchase the building and he was happy to meet with them to listen to their proposals.

Cllr Kilcoyne suggested that the club should be allowed to use the dressing rooms in the swimming pool on an interim basis. He was supported by his colleagues but Mr Mellet said that a health and safety assessment of the building will have to be carried out before this can be considered.