Funding for Winterfest and canal greenway sanctioned

Westmeath County Council’s €166k Business Promotion Fund came up for discussion at yesterday’s meeting of the council’s Economic, Enterprise and Tourism SPC, where members sanctioned funding for two projects of local public interest.

Barry Kehoe, director of services, proposed that an additional €5,000 be set aside to provide more lighting for Mullingar Town Park ahead of the 2020 running of Winterfest, the winter festival held for the first time last December.

“It was a great success last year, and had a positive economic impact on the town,” said Mr Kehoe.

Secondly, the director proposed that €35,000 be contributed to a multi-organisational effort to promote the Royal Canal Greenway, which now runs between Maynooth and the River Shannon.

Mr Kehoe said that a memorandum of understanding had been drawn up between Waterways Ireland and Westmeath, Kildare, Meath and Longford County Councils about contributing equally to a financial pie to promote the greenway nationally and internationally, as a tourist destination.

Some €1m has already been put into installing soft infrastructure along the greenway, such as benches, signage, fences and improved pavement.

The next phase is to launch and promote it, with each county contributing money and initiatives for same. However, the launch has been delayed by the Covid-19 outbreak.

“Westmeath is home to the greatest length of the Royal Canal,” Mr Kehoe explained, saying that making it a tourist hotspot would benefit areas like Mullingar, Killucan, Rathwire, Coolnahay and Ballynacargy.

The director told Cllr Emily Wallace that the marketing spend on the canal would be a “one off”, after which future publicity would fall under the council’s routine marketing spend, not impacting future budgets.

Cllr John Shaw, chairman, was informed that the council, after consulting with the people behind a similar initiative in Waterford, will put out a tender seeking an external public relations consultant, who will devise a strategy to promote the Westmeath stretch of the greenway.

Cllrs Wallace, John Dolan, Aengus O’Rourke and Bill Collentine all welcomed the proposals.

“The canal needs serious marketing, and if we do it right, we’re onto a winner,” said Cllr Collentine.

The Winterfest allocation was proposed by Cllr Wallace and seconded by Cllr Collentine, while the €35,000 greenway allocation was proposed by Cllr Shaw, and seconded by Cllr Dolan.