*Donal O’Connor.
Ogonnelloe is planning for the future with the draft of a three year community development plan circulated to local residents.
In what marks the final stages of a consultative process that began in 2019, households across Ogonelloe are receiving drafts of the development plan which includes a profile of the community gleaned from the most recent Census results.
As per the Census, the population of Ogonnelloe shows a high percentage of young people with those under the age of fourteen making up 26 percent of the population. Individuals over the age of 65 make up 15 percent of the local population.
Chairperson of the Community Planning Group, Donal O’Connor explained that planning began when LEADER under the management of CLDC appointed Charlie Jackson to facilitate the process. “As part of this a questionnaire was circulated to every household and a total of 146 responses were returned. The results informed the development of the draft plan”.
On the findings from the Census, Donal noted, “While we have high employment figures in the community we also have challenges like the level of car dependency and the absence of facilities such as a local shop”.
The draft plan, based on these statistics and feedback from the questionnaires, identifies six key areas of action; community and infrastructure, transport, business and economics, communications, community activities and organisation. “We have nominated specific people to drive the implementation of the actions in these key areas but before we finalise the plan we are asking the people to have one last look at the draft and come back with suggestions,” he said.
Copies of the draft plan and a summary are currently being emailed to as many people as possible while printed versions are available in both churches for those who would like paper copies.
Response sheets at the back of the documents are to be filled out and can be returned to the Parish Office at the Community Centre or via email ogonnelloecommunity@gmail.com on or before Friday, April 30th.
All responses will be reviewed and the draft plan will be adjusted where possible to reflect them. “A final version of the plan will then be circulated to all and, hopefully, at that stage Covid will be on the wane and we will be able to get down to work,” Donal concluded.
