€10m Cusack Park | Sports News

Tuesday, 06 January 2009

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€10m Cusack Park

Joe O'Muircheartaigh

CLARE GAA could be facing a bill of anything between €5 and €10 million to redevelop Cusack Park, it has emerged this week after the county board finally admitted defeat in its ambitious plans to cash in on the development of the site and build a new stadium on a greenfield site.
Having raised the white flag of surrender at last Tuesday night’s monthly meeting of the county board - less than a year after agreeing to sell Cusack Park to the Aishling Chiosóg Partnership in a deal worth €86.4 million - the county board faces the prospect of being plunged into a financial crisis in any effort to upgrade the ground to modern standards.
“It’s like this,” one member of the county board told The Clare People this week, “Cusack Park will have to be redeveloped if Clare wants to have a county grounds that passes heath and safety requirements into the future. That could cost anything between €5 and €10 million, because it should be done right. With county board finances stretched, it will be hard to raise money like that is a recession”.
In May 2003 the county board submitted plans to Ennis Town Council’s planning department to redevelop Cusack Park. They were seeking permission from the planning authority to “demolish the existing southern stand and construct a new stand complete with press/tv facilities withing roof and ground floor accommodation of dressing rooms, toilets, first aid and hospitality, also a two story administration building to include gym, meeting rooms, dressing rooms and a café”.
The redeveloped Cusack Park as envisioned by the county board would have have had 6,000 seats and a capacity of 30,000 as well as an upgraded playing surface.
Permission to carry out these redevelopment works was granted on December 4, 2003, giving the board five years from that date to redevelop the ground that was opened in 1936.
That planning permission runs out in just over two weeks.
Meanwhile, Ennis Town Council member Frankie Neylon has told the county board this week, “if they don’t want to develop it, Ennis Town Council will gladly take it off of their hands if that’s what they want and we’ll look after it.
“We’ll develop it as a municipal park and if they want it for the hurling or the football, we’ll let them use it,” the former Mayor of Ennis added.

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