Plan to shape Roscrea's future advancing

THE BLUEPRINT for how Roscrea will evolve over the next six years is taking shape as the consultation period for the public and stakeholders to express their views on the new Roscrea Local Area Plan 2023 - 2029 closed on Tuesday.

The new Local Area Plan (LAP) is visionary and has a multi-pronged approach to tackle issues long blighting the heritage town, such as dereliction and lack of housing. It also features interesting proposals such as creating a new relief road to take the heavy traffic moving between the M7 motorway and N62 out of the town centre.

The centrepiece of the LAP is the new Town First Masterplan, which has ambitious plans to create a new age friendly neighbourhood and upgrade Gantly Road to a fully-fledged urban street replete with new retail outlets and housing.

Connectivity between the town centre streets will be greatly improved, where currently the lion's share of space on Gantly Road is dedicated to car parking. The new Gantly Street area, which runs perpendicular to Main Street, will feature a cyclepath and a complete overhaul of street furniture, lighting and paving surfaces to create a social area using materials that complement those used in the redesign of Market Square. 

On Tuesday the public consultation period drew to a close, after several in-person workshops in the town and a lengthy window of opportunity for online submissions. The process received an enthusiastic response and received many detailed submissions from members of the public, local groups and national organisations including the OPW, Irish Water and Transport Infrastructure Ireland. 

HOUSING PLAN

A local Sinn Féin election candidate also made a submission and told the Tribune he wants to see a more ambitious housing strategy for the town. In their submission to the council on the new local area plan Roscrea Sinn Féin have called on the
Council to be more ambitious in their housing targets and highlighted the need for more economic development in the townSpeaking after making the submission, Roscrea and Templemore Sinn Féin member, Breandán Ó Conchúir said the local area plan will direct council policy in Roscrea up to 2029, and "it is vital that the new plan is sufficiently ambitious to meet the needs of Roscrea". 

"In our submission we highlight the need for a more ambitious housing target to not only meet the existing social housing need but to reduce the Council's reliance on the Housing Assistance Payment (HAP) in order to free up more private rental properties in the town", he said.

"We also are recommending that the Council take a proactive role in developing serviced sites and working with housing cooperatives to provide affordable housing in Roscrea. The success or failure of the Council's housing strategy will be measured through the number of social and affordable homes provided.

"We also made a number of suggestions regarding economic development. This is a vital issue for the town as it has a high level of deprivation - 40% according to the Council's own draft plan", he said.

"Any economic development strategy must make reducing the level of deprivation a priority. This is why we are proposing a community wealth building strategy for Roscrea to provide sustainable economic development and living wage employment.

"Sinn Féin has a detailed community wealth building policy which outlines how local economies can be developed to ensure wealth is retained locally and recirculated to meet local needs. 

"This is achieved through ‘anchor institutions’ in the locality. These are institutions like the local council, garda station, semi-state companies etc directing as much procurement spend to local suppliers as possible.

"We hope that the Council will take our suggestions on board and will incorporate them into the new local area plan for Roscrea", Mr.  Ó Conchúir said.