The face-lift around Ballybay's Market House is nearly done, and the next job is to take down the overhead power lines in front of it and run them underground. Local councillor Sean Gilliland says that has to happen before work can begin on the long-promised library and the upstairs of the building.
Northern Sound reported on Monday 19 October that €250,000 has been received for public realm works and for putting the overhead power cables underground in the streetscape around the Market House. Construction is substantially complete, and the utility provider is due to start moving the lines shortly.
Power lines first, then the library
Speaking at the most recent meeting of the Ballybay-Clones Municipal District, Cllr Gilliland welcomed the progress. He said the power lines are the first piece of infrastructure to be moved, and that this will allow work to start on the library and the upstairs of the Market House.
The money came under the 2023 Town and Village Scheme. Council minutes from the district's May meeting, held in Smithboro, had already described the works as substantially completed and the cable work as due to start "shortly" by the utility provider.
The only town without a library
The library is the part Ballybay people have been waiting longest for. At the January meeting of Monaghan County Council, Cllr Gilliland (FG) said Ballybay was the only town in the county without a permanent library, and said he was disappointed not to see more progress, the Anglo-Celt reported.
The council's Director of Financial Services, Olga McConnon, told that meeting the council had been offered €1.2 million under the Library Capital Fund for the Ballybay project, but that the cost was estimated at €4 million. She said the council planned to apply to the Rural Regeneration and Development Fund (RRDF), which can cover 90% of a project's cost. "We are progressing through the project management cycle and this has not slowed us down," she said.
By May, the district minutes record that the detailed designs for the Market House were finished and sent to the Department for approval before going to tender, and that an application for funding under the sixth call of the RRDF was being prepared. Councillors were told in January that firm start and finish dates for the library could not be given until all the preparatory stages of the wider project were complete. No outcome of the RRDF application has been announced in the sources we have seen.
Other work around the town
The Market House is one of several projects in Ballybay listed in that May report. At that stage:
- a teen hang-out shelter had been installed in Ballybay Town Park, with a drinking fountain, and wifi was to follow;
- a contractor for a 3x3 basketball court in the town park was about to be appointed, with works due to finish in the third quarter;
- €200,000 had been approved for upgrading the Ballybay multi-use community building, and a contractor had been appointed and was setting up on site;
- the renovation of the Old Health Centre had become the first project in the country approved under the Department's new Single Approval Process;
- a car park was being designed behind No. 3 Main Street, alongside housing plans for that building.
We will report when the power line work starts on the street, and when there is word on funding for the library.
