Athlone's possible outdoor dining sites revealed

The council is looking at the possibility of installing outdoor dining facilities at four locations in Athlone in the coming months.

The local authority is considering installing shared outdoor seating near hospitality businesses at the Market Square car park, between Ss Peter and Paul's Church and Athlone Castle, and at the smaller car park on the south side of the Castle, off Main Street and Castle Street.

On the east side of the town, an area at Custume Place, in the vicinity of Thyme, Gertie Browne's and the Dead Centre brewery, is being considered.

The council is also looking at installing outdoor seating beneath its canopy structure at The Bawn, off Church Street.

The seating would be provided through an outdoor dining grant scheme which was announced in recent weeks and is being administered by Fáilte Ireland and county councils across the country.

The council's Director of Services, Barry Kehoe, explained on Monday that there was a separate aspect of the grant scheme which would allow individual hospitality businesses to apply for grants of up to €4,000 towards costs that they would incur if providing outdoor dining.

"These would be costs such as purchasing chairs and tables, heaters, and awnings that they might need to provide an outdoor dining service to their customers," he said.

He stated that the outdoor dining facilities which the council was looking to provide would be free to use and open to all. They wouldn't be designated for any businesses in particular, but would be located in areas close to eateries and other hospitality businesses.

"It would be a shared space that would be open to the public to use as they see fit, but it would be adjacent to businesses that will hopefully benefit," he said.

"It would be open to the public to use it and would be open to adjacent businesses to provide a service within these sheltered areas, or provide a take-away service and then people who buy food in an adjacent business can go to a table or chair within one of these areas to have their food or drink or whatever it is they have bought."

He mentioned that the council had already received a proposal from Maisie's, a bar and eatery facing the Market Square, about outdoor dining.

Mr Kehoe said the council had to submit its funding application for outdoor dining infrastructure next month, and the facilities would have to be in place "by the autumn".

"My understanding is that there's a provisional allocation for each county of €200,000 (for outdoor dining facilities).

"That's not a huge amount of money, but if we have good projects we'll put them forward, and we'll hope that there might be a few extra euro in it somewhere," he said.

At Monday's meeting of the Athlone Moate Municipal District, Cllr Louise Heavin urged the council to take advantage of the new scheme and she put forward the two aforementioned locations on the west side of town as being suitable.

"The Market Square was originally a market, it was a meeting place and is an historic social area, so I think that's a good place to start off, especially if the council is going to be looking at what that space will be used for in the long-term.

"It's an awkward car park anyway, when you're driving a car in and out of it. That has to be said!" she added.

Cllr Tom Farrell asked if locations outside of Athlone and Mullingar might be considered, and suggested there were locations in Moate which could be suitable for outdoor dining.

Mr Kehoe responded by saying it was a county-wide scheme and the council was open to suggestions if there were other areas of the county where businesses might be able to benefit from it.