Ballina falling behind without progress on major development
The Ballina Civic Offices at Arran Place, Ballina
Councillors in Ballina have repeated called for the IDA Park in Ballina be given priority for development.
Cllr Mark Duffy raised a notice of motion at last week’s area meeting calling for the Municipal District and Mayo County Council to write to IDA regarding this.
IDA Ireland owns approximately 10.6 hectares of industrial zoned land on the Sligo Road in Quignashee, Ballina, however, the site itself has been idle and vacant for a number of years.
“We have had the IDA site sitting idle and there’s serious frustration on the ground that it is not delivered. We need to make sure we have industry in this town.” Cllr Jarlath Munnelly said the mantra of ‘build it and they will come’ was demonstrated with the IDA site in Castlebar and said Ballina would not fail to attract businesses to its own IDA Park.
Cllr John O’Hara said Ballina has fallen behind without having capacity for big businesses to move in.
He said he knew of a Dublin-based company who were interested in setting up in Ballina earlier this year but were not able to find a suitable premises.
“We have not one shovel ready factory or premises here in Ballina,” he said.
"That business would have brought 60 jobs and other companies would have followed them."
