Students get input into Ballyhaunis Town Centre First plan

The chief consultant hired to draft a report on Ballyhaunis’ future development said he’s very satisfied with a series of public consultations held last week at the Community Hall and at other venues around the town.

“We welcomed over 60 people from the community across the Friday and Saturday drop-in sessions [at the hall],” said Tom Bradford, an urban planner with Carrick-on-Shannon-based company, TBLA, which has been engaged by Mayo County Council to draft the plan under the Government’s Town Centre First regeneration initiative.

“A huge variety of aspects of the town were discussed," he explained. "Some of the stronger themes that emerged include improvements to social infrastructure and family facilities, more sports and recreational amenities and making better connections in and around the town. We will spend the rest of this week reviewing the feedback and categorising all the comments into key themes.

“In addition to the community drop-in sessions, we visited Ballyhaunis Community School and St John's National School in Logboy on the Friday morning where we held informal workshops with students."

Mr Bradford and his team had an informal conversation with Transition Year students at Ballyhaunis Community School on what it was like to grow up in Ballyhaunis and they also discussed what could be done to improve the town for young people. In St John's National School, the consultants joined a class of eight to 12-year-olds and formed teams to "map the town in terms of emoji stickers which are representative of their feelings and perceptions around the town". 

The students were then asked to come up with an idea each and present it to the rest of the class. A wide range of ideas emerged including a children’s cafe, more activities, events, play and sports equipment, more homes for migrants and refugees and better traffic management on Main Street. 

“Not only was this a great opportunity for us to get insight into the town but it also allowed students a chance to speak individually and hear the ideas and thoughts of their classmates," said Mr Bradford. “A handful of us then went to the Mosque to hand out flyers at the end of Friday prayers to ensure that the Muslim community was well represented at the drop-in sessions.

“We then dashed back to speak to the Foróige BEY group which is an afterschool youth club run from the community hall. We had an animated chat with the group which ranged from cricket pitches, places to meet and study."

Running alongside the consultation, students from Queen’s University in Belfast were undertaking surveys of the town which included vehicle and pedestrian counts, parking surveys, checking land use and vacancy rates in buildings. This all forms part of the feasibility study and will help inform any actions that come out of the consultation process.

“We have over 100 responses to the online community survey so far but would like to receive more to ensure we have as much representation from the community as possible," said Mr Bradford. "Individuals and families in the community have until March 3rd to fill in a copy of the online survey to ensure they have had a chance to input into stage 1 of the consultation process.

“Our next step is to ensure that we get as much community feedback as possible and we will be looking to talk to business owners and stakeholders about the different opportunities there are in the town.” 

Anne McCarthy, town regeneration officer at Mayo Co Council, explained that like all the designees for the Town Centre First project “Ballyhaunis is facing many issues”. However, she said, “it also has unique potential arising from its young, growing population and rich cultural diversity".

"The Ballyhaunis Town Centre First Team has been working together for over ten months and are very dedicated to improving the town for everyone living there. The Queen’s University Belfast students were impressed with the warm, friendly welcome and atmosphere in the town. We all loved hearing the ideas from the people who came to the consultation, young and old, from diverse backgrounds.”