A VISION of what a new marine activity centre will offer the town of Bantry was presented by the organisation chairman, Conor McCarthy, at a Bantry Business Association breakfast meeting last week.
Although the proposed development is still at the pre-planning stage, a lot of preparatory work has already gone into the project, the chairman of the Bantry Marine Activity Centre (BMAC) stated.
In his presentation of the preliminary designs, Conor McCarthy indicated that it would require a retained site at The Abbey.
He said that would give them room to create a new slipway, a community building, and a storage facility that would meet the needs of the local sailing club, rowing club, Atlantic Challenge, sea swimmers, and others.
Citing various sailing club competitions, as well as Atlantic Challenge events which have been hosted locally, Mr McCarthy said the community building would offer catering facilities and be of sufficient size to host future events.
There will also be a second building that would be used to store boats, and provide changing rooms and toilet facilities, while there would also be a main slipway, as well as a safe access slipway just for Bantry’s growing number of sea swimmers.
Long-term, Mr McCarthy outlined how such a facility would attract a mobile sauna in that area, as well as mobile food trucks and coffee vendors, making it an amenity that would appeal to tourists and visitors too.
‘We are doing this, not just to provide facilities for ourselves. It’s about what it will bring to the town. Our mission as a community association is to work to provide a shared and universally-accessible marine activity facility on the shores of Bantry Bay,’ he said.
Mr McCarthy was invited to the business breakfast meeting to give people an update on the progress made so far.
He began by outlining how, in 2015, three local clubs got together – the sailing club, the Atlantic Challenge and the rowing club – to see if they could build a facility that would benefit everyone.
He said the sailing club needed a facility that would not involve their members crossing a busy main road – the N71 – to gain access to the water.
Part of the large gathering at the information meeting held in 2023 for the proposed Bantry Marine Activities Centre.
And while the rowing club has a facility at Reendonegan Lake on the outskirts of town, he said they don’t have a location on the coast for their coastal rowing activities.
Meanwhile, the Atlantic Challenge longboat is stored out at the airstrip so they are looking for a store and a place from which they can do their training. Conor McCarthy said they began their preparatory work by engaging in discussions with the Bantry Bay Port Company and the Port of Cork, about where they could locate such a development and develop the inner harbour area. The concept for the project was significantly advanced, leading to preliminary conversations with Cork County Council in 2019, but the process was disrupted by the Covid pandemic.
But the silver lining in all of that, he added, was the incredible rise in sea swimming and people’s appreciation of Bantry Bay as a maritime resource.
‘Sea swimming has become a big part of the activity on our shoreline,’ said Mr McCarthy, who showed preliminary drawings that provided swimmers with a safe slipway of their own adjacent to the new centre.
In 2022, BMAC had a community information evening and the feedback from that was both positive and encouraging, he said.
An application was then submitted to the Bantry Community Fund and received an allocation which allowed them to progress the study and planning process. In 2023, he said, architects AP+E and Tara Kennedy got involved and a feasibility study was carried out.
More than 400 people contributed to an online survey, which was indicative of the positive feedback and the level of stakeholders interested in seeing the project brought to a conclusion.
‘It was also an opportunity for us to finalise where to locate the centre after considering four options,’ he added.
At the end of last year, BMAC selected a firm of engineers Malachy Walsh & Partners to advise them on the project.
That company helped to prepare documents for the planning process and on October 1st they submitted a pre-planning meeting request to Cork County Council.
A few days later, they also met with the Maritime Area Regulatory Authority (Mara) to discuss what was previously referred to as a foreshore licence application but is now known as a maritime area consent (Mac) application, and this was submitted on December 6th.
‘It is important to note that an approved Mac application is required as part of a planning application,’ said Mr McCarthy, who also pointed out that the application could take anything from three to 18 months.
Meanwhile, BMAC is still waiting on feedback from Cork County Council with regard to a pre-planning meeting, but Mr McCarthy said that once that is done, it will finalise all of the requirements for the planning application, as well as the associated costs.
‘We continue to work with MWP AP+E Tara Kennedy on design drawings, especially from the point of view of initial capital costs and ongoing maintenance and running costs,’ he added.
In the meantime, BMAC continues to work with Malachy Walsh and Partners, and others, on the design drawings and are keeping in mind every aspect of the plan, including the initial capital cost to build it, as well as long-term maintenance and running costs.
