Castlebar councillor slams 'lack of delivery' to county town

A Castlebar councillor has accused management at Mayo County Council of being unable to deliver on large-scale projects.

Referring to the absence of timelines in projects referred to in a new economic strategy document presented to councillors at last week's monthly meeting, Cllr Blackie Gavin said: "There was an announcement over seven years ago of €11.5 million in [Urban Regneration and Development Funding] for Castlebar and there was big fanfare over all these millions, but only one job has been started and that is the old post office. 

“When I served on the town council for 20 years, we made our capital plans and we delivered on the bypass and the barracks project. The best money we ever spent was the walks around Lough Lannagh. We were collecting €1 million a year from pay and display [parking], and then Mayo County Council robbed it all off us.

“Back then we had our own civic offices but now our office is a room at the back of the Aras over the canteen. This is for Castlebar, the county town.

“Ye are just not fit to deliver on projects. I am sitting here 15 years as a Mayo county councillor and it is the worst time in my political career, because nothing has been delivered for Castlebar. It is absolutely shocking.

“When are we going to have our new civic offices? Nobody is telling me. The old post office, the plans look lovely on paper but there is nobody to deliver it. I’m listening to this since the workshop in Breaffy House on all the capital projects that were to be done, but feck all has been done.”

Council chief executive Kevin Kelly agreed that a number of projects have "been on the boil but are coming to a point where they are going to construction, some in the next few weeks and some next year". 

"For various reasons, there is a gap between the announcement of funding and as Cllr Gavin knows, we had a period there where we were entertaining a hotel development (for the former Imperial Hotel) and quite some time was spent working through that but then it had to be reviewed. We have a very good project team in place working hard on those capital projects and have also been very successful with many of them.”

• Published as part of the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme.