Tender for sports campus design to issue
Tender documents are set to be issued for a consultancy team to lead the design of a new multi-million euro sports campus for Cavan Town.
Held up by Covid previously, Cavan County Council, in conjunction with its project partners, are expected to issue tenders later this month.
Almost €840,000 was jointly allocated to the local authority and the Cavan County GAA Board towards the new state-of-the-art, multi-sports facility.
The project was one of just seven major sports projects nationally to be granted funding under the Large Scale Sport Infrastructure Fund (LSSIF).
“We should be in a position to appoint our detailed design team sometime in October, and will proceed immediately to planning hopefully around late 2023,” confirmed Director of Services, Brendan Jennings.
He added that the local authority expects funding sources will come available next year with a view to financing the construction of the project to be delivered on a phased basis in conjunction with the development a centre of excellence at Kingspan Breffni Park by Cavan GAA.
An agreement is also in place with the neighbouring Royal School, which has plans to enhance its own sporting facilities. It’s estimated the sports campus plan could cost as much as €30 million once finally delivered.
Land use agreements with respective neighbouring landowners are said to be “pretty much” near completion, and Mr Jennings stated: “Once we get the detail design process underway, those consultants will cast an expert view on how best our ambitions will fit the site, and how best to develop as well.”
The director told The Anglo-Celt: “We’ve always been ambitious, and we as a county and a council have to be ambitious when it comes to delivering flagship projects such as this for Cavan. But at the same time we have to be financially astute with what we do.”
Similar in scale to the hugely successful Erne East Peace Link facility in Clones, the Cavan multi-sports facility will include 4G pitches for Gaelic football, soccer and rugby, playing areas for basketball and hockey, and facilities for badminton and tennis, as well as athletics.
There are also plans to build a competitive-sized swimming pool on site at a later stage.