Saturday, 2 June 2007

€1.5m Crossabeg sports complex denied planning

Wexford County Council has turned down plans for a €1.5 million sports complex and community centre that would have provided a focus for the community at Crossabeg.

The ambitious development is planned on a 22-acre site at Garrywilliam, Artramon, and includes a gymnasium, treatment rooms, athletics ground, an all-weather training pitch, tennis courts and two GAA pitches.

Nicky Cowman, a key member of a committee set up by the local community to carry out a feasibility study for to the project, said on Tuesday that everyone was disappointed, but insisted that a solution to the current impasse would be found.

We were all set to go, everything was all set to go and we were turned down because we failed the flow test at the point of discharge into a nearby stream,' said Mr. Cowman.

Obviously we need a big volume of water and while the test was reasonably good, the volume of water is the main problem there now,' said Mr. Cowman. He said he had discussed the situation with architect Nicky Mernagh who was condfident he could sort out the problem.

He's working on possible solutions. We are not even going to even slow down and we're going to push hard all the way,' said Mr. Cowman.

We feel we have the parish behind us and we're getting good support from Ballymurn and are confident we can overcome the problems. Hopefully we can start later this year,' he said.

The land for the development was donated by well-known farmer Robert Harvey, who traces his roots back to Bagenal Harvey.

Mr. Harvey had originally offered the community a 3.5 acre parcel of land, but when he and Mr. Cowman examined how best it could be developed, they realised that it wasn't large enough to cater to the Crossabeg community's ambitious plans.

Wexford People

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