“Can Athlone handle such a massive housing plan?”

Athlone councillors have questioned whether the town's roads, water, sewerage, and school infrastructure will be able to cope with the scale of the 576-unit housing development proposed in Lissywollen.

"This is a mammoth undertaking. A huge, huge scheme. And I'm asking the question in my head: Are we ready for this?" said the town's Mayor, Cllr Aengus O'Rourke.

He was speaking at last Wednesday's special meeting of the Athlone Moate Municipal District, which took place remotely in order to discuss the plans which were submitted by developer Alanna Roadbridge Ltd to An Bord Pleanala last month.

A total of 285 houses and 291 apartments or duplexes are being proposed on a 17.6 hectare site close to Athlone Regional Sports Centre and Athlone Town FC Stadium.

The project would also include a new link road - billed as 'Lissywollen Avenue' - connecting the Ballymahon Road with the Garrycastle area.

This is the second strategic housing development put forward in East Athlone recently, after An Bord Pleanala gave the green light to the 426-unit Castlestar scheme in Coosan last October.

The possibility of these two projects resulting in over 1,000 homes being constructed on either side of the Ballymahon Road in the coming years led several councillors to raise questions about the viability of the Lissywollen scheme last week.

"Obviously, I'm all for development, I'm all for population growth... but can our sewerage, our water and our schools take this scale of development?" asked Cllr O'Rourke.

"It's all very well saying in an application that these are all in place, but who actually determines, in a factual and measured way, whether we are ready for this?"

He pointed out that the Lissywollen application stated there were seven primary schools within walking distance of the development site.

"I'm dazed trying to count to seven primary schools within walking distance of Lissywollen. If they mean schools in west Athlone, they're certainly not within walking distance," he said.

The seven schools referenced in the plans as being within walking distance of the development do include two on the west side of Athlone: St Peter's NS and St Paul's NS.

Cllr Frankie Keena said "the key question" was around the capacity of the town's water and sewerage infrastructure, and its schools, to cope with the potential combined demands of the Coosan and Lissywollen developments.

He also pointed out that one particular area of the Lissywollen plan, which includes a five-storey apartment block, would have a housing density of just over 70 units per hectare, twice the maximum recommended density in the council's Athlone area plan.

"It's a huge concentration of people that are going to be living in that area. Also, I'd have concerns about a five-storey block and how it's going to interface with the two-storey houses behind it on Brawny road," said Cllr Keena.

The level of density proposed in some areas of the development was also of concern to Cllr Louise Heavin.

"The question - and rightly so - is can this area of the town deal with that kind of density?" she said.

"It's not a town centre site, it is a peripheral site. It's too far to walk to the town centre from this site, so we are relying on a local bus service and cycling, otherwise it's going to generate a lot of traffic, and I have some concerns over that."

Cllr John Dolan said it was "exciting" to see a proposal for such a large volume of new housing, but he cautioned that "we shouldn't be just building houses for the sake of building houses - we're looking to build communities as well."

He asked how the Ballymahon Road would cope with the expected increase in traffic as a result of the development, saying that in pre-pandemic times it was a regular site of congestion and delays coming into Athlone.

"We're going to probably add to that (traffic), so how is congestion going to be coped with for the town of Athlone going forward?

"When we were looking at the Church Street (one-way) development we got traffic modelling done. I wonder has that been done here?"

The potential impact on traffic on the Ballymahon Road was also raised by Cllr Jamie Moran.

"Will the traffic be able to cope?" he asked. "Everyone knows that most of the schools in Athlone are full. I don't know if there will be enough room, with the amount of houses they're planning on building here."

Had the Department of Education been consulted, Cllr Tom Farrell asked. "This estate and Castlestar (in Coosan) are only a few hundred yards either side of the N55. There's going to be a huge amount of pressure on national schools.

"I'm just wondering will there be provision, or land set aside in this, so that if a (new) school is required, the land will be there," he said.

Council Director of Services Barry Kehoe said he didn't expect a new school to be required specifically to serve the Lissywollen development.

However, he said there would be "a challenge" for the Department of Education to ensure school places were available to meet the needs of a growing Athlone.

"There probably is a challenge here for the Department of Education to ensure that sufficient investment is made in the schools in Athlone to facilitate developments such as this," said Mr Kehoe.

"Because development is going to happen - and should happen - in Athlone. Athlone should grow, because that's the national strategy for Athlone.

"That development requires State investment, both in water and wastewater, transportation infrastructure, social infrastructure, and that includes education and schools."

Asked if the infrastructure was currently there to cope with the Lissywollen development, Mr Kehoe replied that if approval was granted the new homes would not be built overnight.

"It's a very substantial development, and it will take a period of time. The market in Athlone is such that it wouldn't be feasible or sustainable to build this development really quickly. There are other developments that will hopefully take place in Athlone as well.

"But we do want Athlone to grow. We want Athlone to be the regional centre that it has been identified as in the national planning framework. From that perspective, I think it's important that we're open to new development," he said.

"This is a centrally located site of scale, it's well-connected, it's well provided with amenity infrastructure, it's well-connected with the road network, it's close to the town centre, and I think that people who live here could enjoy a very high quality of life."

The views of the councillors are to be compiled in a Westmeath County Council chief executive's report which must be submitted to An Bord Pleanala by April 20.

A decision on the development is due from An Bord Pleanala by June 15.

* For more reports from last week's council meeting on the Lissywollen housing plan, pick up this week's Westmeath Independent