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Over the past year, the Darragh Cross Community
Association have been working to evaluate the feasibility of establishing a community hall in Darragh Cross, specifically
aimed at providing a much needed facility for the youth and children of the wider Darragh community. One of the initial and
key challenges facing the Association was to indentify a suitable location for the new hall facility and a number of options
were considered:
1. Upgrade/replacement of the existing parish hall
2. A joint venture with GAA
to locate the hall at the GAA pitch
3.
A green field site development
4.
No Action
Option 1 Option one was examined to the point where a survey
was carried out to establish the cost and feasibility of restoring the Parish Hall to a suitable standard to be used as a
community hall. The initial survey returned an estimated cost of circa £250,000 - £300,000. It
was felt that spending this amount of money on repairing an existing building, was not the best use of funds. In addition,
the terms of the proposed lease were also prohibitive, in that the repaired hall could be sold off after a relatively short
period of time. It was therefore felt that the Association should move to option 2 and look at a potential
joint venture with the local GAA club.
Option 2
After some discussion
with the club an agreement was reached in principle, that the Community Association could possibly make use of land at the
pitch, adjacent to the existing club house. Representation was made to Down District Council regarding this proposal and seeking
their support and the Council were keen to understand the plan and detail behind the proposal. The Council extended an invite
to the Association and the GAA to present the details of the proposal to their recreation committee. However, before the presentation
could be prepared, the Community Association had to get clarification from the GAA on a number of key areas relating to the
proposal including the agreement/support from the committee of the club, club trustees and the GAA county board. A letter was sent to the GAA in May 2009 requesting a response to these specific points.
Unfortunately however, the club has not yet been able to provide the information needed within the timescales to move the
proposal to the point were a joint presentation to the Council could be done. Therefore the presentation had to be postponed
and subsequently cancelled. The local club have confirmed that they are still
trying to provide clarity around these points and are still committed to the proposal.
However, in light of the
time taken to obtain a response to the points above, it was felt that the Association should move forward with alternative
proposals, on the assumption that an agreement with the GAA club may not be reached within the time scales needed to submit
the application for funding.
The DCCA however would still be hopeful that a joint venture agreement could
be reached with the club within the remaining funding timesales. Down District Council will be provided with this
update.
Option 3 While potential land has been identified which may be suitable for a “Green
Field” site, recent changes to the planning regulations for the Darragh Cross area make this option a non starter, certainly
in the short to medium term.
Option 4. A number of factors need to be considered in relation to the building and
subsequent running of the hall, some of which include the following:
- Who would be prepared to manage
and run the day to day operation of the hall and its activities?
- Would
there be enough interest around the wider community to ensure that the hall was a viable proposition e.g. what groups/residents
would be interested in using the hall?
- The long term future
of the hall i.e. ownership, liability, funding, maintenance etc.
These
are only some of the issues to be considered and it is a realistic assumption that these issues may not be satisfactorily
resolved and if not, the over all conclusion would be that a new community hall may not be an option for the area.
Going forward – As
of October 2009 the DCCA have agreed to look once again at the option of restoration/replacement of the old parish hall and
will be making representations to the relevant bodies regarding this proposal. The
DCCA will also be looking at a second location/project for a new facility and have already had initial discussion regarding
this proposal Finally, the option of working with the GAA to build a new facility
at the pitch is still an option and the Association will be prepared to consider any proposals that may be forthcoming from
the club in the future. We hope this provides the community with a fair
and reasonable assessment of the position regarding a Community Hall for Darragh cross and hope that the community appreciate
the difficulties and effort required to make such a project a reality, especially with a very small team of volunteers.
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