Council is 'examining all options' for historic Castlebar building
Marsh House is the former headquarters of Castlebar Town Council.
The future of Marsh House at Newtown in Castlebar remains unclear, with fears being expressed that the building is falling into dereliction.
The matter was raised by Cllr Harry Barrett at the October meeting of Mayo County Council who asked council management whether there are plans for the building, which was once the headquarters of Castlebar Town Council and was most recently used by the Educate Together National School.
Cllr Barrett said he knew of an excellent education body that is badly in need of new accommodation and asked whether Marsh House could be considered.
Cllr Ger Deere said he too had many people asking him about Marsh House, adding that plenty of organisations are looking to lease the building. He said that the local authority in Castlebar should never have moved out of the building and that it is disgraceful that Castlebar Municipal District continues to have to meet “in a room over the canteen at the back of [Áras an Chontae]".
“We should never have moved out of Marsh House until we had our own civic offices. Look at the other municipal areas, Claremorris, Westport, Belmullet, Ballina, they all have their own municipal offices, but the county town has none. This is very embarrassing. We have people coming from all over the world to this town, including large industrialists, and we can’t even use our own facility. Something urgently needs to be done. I feel we are being kept in the dark. When people ask us about Marsh House, we can’t tell them.”
Cllr Deere told management: “So give it to some organisation or open it up for municipal offices for the county.”
Cllr Al McDonnell said he too had been approached by an educational body that had “no place to go” and asked that serious consideration be given to allowing it to lease Marsh House.
Chief Executive Kevin Kelly replied: “The representations for Marsh House are noted. We have a number of interested parties in respect of the property, and we are examining all options.”
- Published as part of the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme.
