Kilkenny Castle’s upgrade plans are being welcomed.
Fiona O’Neill’s with the Public Participation Network (PPN) and she’s been reacting to the planning application the OPW, which oversees the care of the county’s most visited property.
We reported on the plans after they were outlined on Friday at a meeting of the council’s strategic policy committee (SPC) for Economic Development, Enterprise Support, Tourism, Planning and Development Policy (More on that here).
On KCLR Live this morning Fiona said “To hear recently the update from Rosemary Collier from the OPW with Kilkenny Castle about their improvements that are going to be made when it comes to toilet facilities and the fact that they’re going to be including changing places in Kilkenny Castle is just phenomenal”.
She adds “We have been, through the PPN, advocating to get a changing places facility in the new Abbey Quarter and the county council have agreed that, that it’s on the agenda and that’s going to be something included, but to have a changing places and a facility for people with disabilities both in the Abbey Quarter and now up the other end of town at Kilkenny Castle, there’s no other OPW building in Ireland, actually Aras an Uachtarain is the only other building in Ireland that has a changing places facility, so to make changing places in both ends of the city for people with disabilities is going to be a huge, huge benefit to anyone living in the city but travelling to the city and being a visitor to the city as well”.
Fiona too is delighted with another addition that’s on the way, noting “One of the other changes that the castle is having as well is the new toilet facilities so they were talking about that the toilet facilities are actually going to be underground, not underground as in cave-like but as in that they’re going to the architect who’s to design them in such a way that there’s a flow out of the way, that it’s not going to interfere with the beauty of the castle either but the toilet facilities are 100% needed there, again for people visitors, again people with disabilities, the same thing”.
And she says “The improvements to the castle are 100% welcomed, need, so exciting to hear because Kilkenny is a leader when it comes to enterprise and tourism but it needs to be a leader now across the country for people with disabilities and not just visible disabilities but people invisible disabilities as well so a welcome, welcome update from Rosemary Collier to do with Kilkenny Castle it’s definitely something we’re going to keep on the agenda because it needs to happen sooner rather than later”.
Meanwhile, recently elected Chair of Kilkenny County Council, Fidelis Doherty, also touched on this topic while on KCLR Live earlier as part of a wider conversation – listen back to that here:
