The Kilkenny City Fire Station is “for another era” and must be updated.
That’s according to Mayor John Coonan, after this week’s meeting of the County Council saw new designs unveiled for the upcoming station in Urlingford.
Countywide, the Fire Service has secured more than €8 million in funding to make those plans a reality, and to make similar progress on a new premises in Kilkenny City.
The city’s new station is still in the very early stages of site selection, but Cllr Coonan says an updated building is badly needed there telling KCLR News “It was also mentioned that around 8 million would be available for fire stations in Kilkenny and I posed the question about the fire station in Kilkenny City to know what was the up-to-date position and I was advised that the executive and management were actively engaged in seeking out a suitable location for a new fire station in Kilkenny City, everybody knows that the present fire station was for another era and they’re in a cramped site up the Gaol Road and it behooves us to provide an up-to-date, modern facility for that emergency service”.
He adds “In any emergency situation time is of the essence and, as we all know, that the fire station in Kilkenny City apart from the cramped conditions, that’s there in the middle of the city and to get to the emergency service time is of the essence and to be fair to the people in the fire station and the emergency service themselves and the staff they do incredible work, it is life-saving and it is important and it is of the essence that we find a location like we did in Urlingford and like we will please God in the not too distant future in the Kilkenny City and environs as well that will provide us with that facility as well”.
Cllr Coonan too has another local service in mind, noting “We also had a presentation from the Civil Defence from Katherine Peacock and the incredible work they’re doing and they were looking for a site or maybe a home for their services as well and it was proposed and agreed by the members as well that maybe when we found the location for a suitable site for the fire service in Kilkenny City and environs that we might find a site that would be suitable for co-location that would also include the premises for the Civil Defence and their facilities as well so all in all very good news and much welcomed for Kilkenny City and County”?
Meanwhile, our Sue Nunn was joined on The Way It Is by Katherine Peacock – listen back to that chat here:
