New 20-acre urban park is being planned in Kilkenny City

A new 20-acre urban park is being planned to link Bateman Quay with St. Francis Bridge in Kilkenny City.

A public consultation is underway on the plan for the area around the upstanding remains of St. Francis Abbey which will form part of the new Abbey Quarter project.

Council Engineer Tony Lauhoff says there will be orchards and other planting to try and bring the area back to something like it might have looked in the historical past:

“It will reference back to the historical planting of the area so there’s proposed orchards and planting, and then you have areas that are more sensitive where records and through our test excavations we have determined that there were previous burials in the area of the abbey so again that will be reflected in the planting and people will have reference to it” he said.