No date for start of sports centre project

Just over 20 months after initial plans for a public sports and leisure facility at Robinstown, Mullingar were unveiled to the public, Westmeath County Council has yet to identify a timeline for the completion of the proposed multi-million euro project.Speaking to the Westmeath Examiner this week, George Lambden, the Council's Mullingar Area Director of Services, said that once tender documents for the Mullingar Integrated Sports and Leisure Complex are finalised, funding will dictate when the project is delivered."At the moment though, we have no date as to when work will begin, or when it will end," Mr. Lambden said.A key step towards the delivery of the state-of-the-art centre was an application for Gateway Innovation Fund monies under the National Spatial Strategy.But the project was dealt a hammer-blow earlier this year, when the Council was denied Gateway funding for the initiative.Labour's Cllr. Mick Dollard said this week that because of this development, the integrated sports centre had been "put on hold" for the foreseeable future."Unfortunately, it's like a lot of capital projects across the country right now. Funding just isn't there," he said, adding that Westmeath County Council is actively exploring alternative means of raising funds for the €20 million project."It's going to be so important for the future development of Mullingar, but unfortunately, with the way things are, money is just hard to come by," Cllr. Dollard added.When the results of a feasibility study were first unveiled in December 2007, consultants suggested that the proposed sports facility would not only pay for itself, but would return an operational profit of €50,000 per year.The consultants envisaged that the complex would boast a 33.5 metre x 12.5 metre six lane swimming pool and ancillary facilities; a children's leisure pool; a three-court sports arena of regional scale, capable of division into three separate halls for training and coaching and to comply with the highest international standards; a fitness gym; two exercise areas, one of which will accommodate boxing; two all-weather floodlit soccer pitches capable of being combined for GAA training; an all-weather training pitch; two natural turf training pitches capable of dealing with the ever increasing demand for training facilities for underage sports; and administrative offices.The planned facility would be capable of hosting a wide range of sports events at a competitive level, including international competitions.