No start date yet for huge Athlone housing estate and road project

An information event last week about Athlone's largest-ever housing development was told a start date for the construction work has not yet been finalised.

An estimated 50 or so people called in at various stages during the information evening on the 576-unit project in the Lissywollen area. The event took place in the Scoil na gCeithre Máistrí gaelscoil, which is situated next to the development site, between 6pm and 8pm on Wednesday.

It was organised by developer Alanna Homes, which had one of its staff, development director Thomas Freeman, on hand to answer questions.

Contracts for the development were signed at Westmeath County Council's offices in December, and at that stage it was stated that work on site would commence "early in 2025".

At Wednesday's event, however, no start date was indicated and it was suggested that construction was more likely to begin in a matter of months than in a matter of weeks.

The first phase of the project will involve the construction of a controversial 30km per hour link road, described in planning documents as Lissywollen Avenue, which would traverse the housing development and create a new route from the Ballymahon Road to Garrycastle.

Mr Freeman told the Westmeath Independent the road was expected to take around 12 months to construct. The first phase of the housing, which would be towards the Garrycastle end of the development site, would be undergoing construction while the road was being put in place.

"We can start the construction of the houses, but we must have the new road open in order for the houses to be occupied," he explained.

"We will be selling off plans and we hope that the first houses will be available for occupation in tandem with the road opening."

The 576 planned housing units are due to be constructed in several phases over a number of years, with the development gradually moving from the Garrycastle end of the site towards the existing Brawny housing and the gaelscoil.

The new estate, named 'Plovers Wood' is to include a mix of houses and apartments with the 576 units including 174 units of social housing, and two creches.

Mr Freeman acknowledged that the start of construction had been "a long time coming" but he said Alanna Homes was eager to make progress on the development.

"We see Athlone as a really desirable location. It's one of the best-located towns in the country," he said.

"It's accessible to Dublin, it's accessible to the west. It has fantastic amenities. It's got the Shannon - it's effectively the Irish Riviera - so it's got everything going for it."

Some locals have expressed safety concerns about the new link road through the development, but Mr Freeman said the bends and curves in the road would act as a natural deterrent to speeding.

"The road is designed using DMURS, the design manual for urban streets, which is a Government document. The idea is that traffic calming is designed into the scheme from the start."

He said that, while there would be ramps on certain parts of the road, "the idea is that you're not relying on ramps, you're relying on other measures to slow the traffic down by having corners and bends and things like that."

He also said that if people had particular concerns they wanted to raise in relation to the road, now was the time to make them known.

"If we meet people and they make suggestions, we can bring them to the engineers and they will tell us whether they can or can't do it," he said. "We want to bring the community along with us."

He said the phased nature of the development meant there wouldn't be a massive number of construction workers on site at the one time.

"You'll have different trades there at different times. There will be hundreds of people employed but they'll be employed over different periods of time - they won't all be here at once," he said.

"As much as possible, we're going to try to source local tradesmen and local workers."

One of the Brawny residents in attendance at Wednesday's information event, Keith Dowling, said a priority for himself and other locals was to see traffic calming measures and fencing for the existing Brawny residents in place before the new road is opened.

"As a local resident, you also want to know when is it starting? What are the operating times? Where are the set down areas? Where are they going to be parking the vans? And is (the site) secured?" said Mr Dowling.

"We can't stop (the development), we know we can't stop it. We were always for it - the only thing we didn't like was the new road, because we didn't feel it was needed."