Friday’s news of 28 million euro in funding’s still sinking in across the two counties.
Under the Urban Regeneration and Development Funding Project Carlow 2040 was allocated close to ten million. (See how we broke the news on Friday here).
CEO of Carlow Chamber Brian O’Farrell says it’s something his group’s been working towards telling KCLR News “It’s great and it’s something the Chamber has been working very hard on over the last long while, right through the whole period of developing the plans in consultation with the council and members of the public which was a great process, right through to when the applications were submitted, the chamber’s worked very hard with the five TDs in the constituency and different bodies to really try to push this forward.”
He adds “We see it that this is the catalyst, this is what’s gonna turn Carlow around, we haven’t had this level of investment for a long while into the town or the county and we need to see changes happening and we’ve got a fabulous plan with Project Carlow 2040 and this is the starting point to it, the one thing we’re not going to do is we’re not going to have the full plan overnight but we need to start somewhere and this is where is going to happen and we’re delighted to see this now”.
€11 and a half million has been earmarked for the Abbey Quarter in Kilkenny with almost €7 million more for development of other parts of the city centre.
Colin Ahern is President of Kilkenny Chamber said they’re very supportive and delighted to hear of the funding saying “We’re hopeful that the development in the Abbey Quarter will be beneficial for business, tourism and for employment in general in the city centre and to have a prime site like that being developed with the potential to deliver so much employment, so much extra business to our city is something other towns in Ireland don’t have the opportunity to do”.
He adds “We’re very, very supportive of the funding, very thankful of how it’s being delivered you know the South East has been the poor man’s relation in terms of funding and development over the last ten, fifteen, twenty years and has some of the highest rates of unemployment, something like this is only going to help move us in the right direction and continue to develop the South East and Kilkenny City over the next ten, fifteen years”.
