*An aerial shot of UL.
PLANS for Clare County Council and the University of Limerick to build Europe’s first university town have been shelved.
Six years and tens of thousands of euros later, plans for the South Clare Strategic Development Zone (SDZ) came to a shuddering halt in the past week after the Governing Authority of the University of Limerick recommended that its application for the SDZ designation be withdrawn.
An application for the designation was made to the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage in February 2022 but work on the project commenced in 2018. An economic report prepared by the County Council and UL found that it could generate a gross added value of €1.795 billion annually to the Irish economy, create upwards of 3,500 jobs with additional employment being generated in the construction phase and subsequent spin-off developments. The SDZ had been included in the draft Regional Spatial and Economic Strategy (RSES). UL would have had to acquire 100 hectares of land to progress the SDZ.
Acting President of UL, Professor Shane Kilcommins outlined, “The University’s reasons for withdrawing are multi-faceted, and I want to state emphatically that they have absolutely nothing to do with the Council, which to my mind did everything that could reasonably have been asked of it in relation the application and was an exemplary partner at all times.
“Among the reasons for withdrawing are infrastructure such as Limerick Northern Distributor Road, alignment with academic programme development at this time, imminent changes in planning legislation and the current governance situation of the University. The reviews commissioned following the Rhebogue property acquisition, together with the requirement to now develop an implementation plan to address identified shortcomings are highly relevant. This process of remediation will take time and successful implementation is essential to the rebuilding of trust and confidence with our key stakeholders. The shifting legislative landscape is also a relevant factor”.
If an SDZ designation was granted, a “significant financial investment” would have been required by UL, Prof Kilcommins noted, “whereas previously it had planned on the basis of the designation being cost-neutral for UL”.
Addressing Monday’s meeting of the County Council, Dowling said they had been “pressing” UL to try move the project forward. He said they never met with the Governing Authority of UL, only the President in their six years working on the project. He said he along with Director of Economic Development, Carmel Kirby held a “face to face” meeting with the UL President in the last fortnight before the Governing Authority made their decision.
Referencing correspondence received from the Acting President, Dowling commented, “You can see by some of the tone of the language about the nature of the governance and challenges they’ve had, ones I’ve highlighted to them on many occasions over many years, certain sections of the university were fully behind the project but it is clear to me now that the people entrusted with the decision making on the future of the university weren’t fully engaged. The project has been withdrawn because they were the lead partner”.
Speaking in the Council Chamber, Cllr Michael Begley (IND) stated, “It is a sad sort of letter to receive here, it is even sadder it took six years of deliberations to come to this conclusion”. He added, “UL is there and it is not going away, they don’t have much land to play around with other than on the Clare side of the river so any development in the future will happen in South-East Clare, they have abandoned the idea of pursuing the veterinary school, one would wonder how much of their energies are taken up with trying to correct their own mistakes”.
“One of the things that nailed the whole project was the LNDR,” believed Cllr Pat Hayes (FF).
“I don’t think we should lose faith in trying to get that back on the project, it is infrastructure that would improve the connectivity of the whole region”. He added, “UL has a wonderful name and history, we need to support it, we’ve had several Council meetings there down through the years, we need to be careful that we don’t talk down UL to a degree because UL is hugely important to us in Co Clare”.
Cathaoirleach of the Shannon MD, Cllr Pat O’Gorman (FF) voiced his frustration, “to think we had six years wasting our time, why didn’t they come out six years ago and say they weren’t interested, we thought we were going great guns when having briefings on this with Liam Conneally before he went to Galway”.
UL will need to consider capital investment “more carefully going forward,” Dowling told the meeting. Further meetings with UL have been arranged by the Director of Economic Development, he said. “The university can only grow in one place, that will benefit our county in due course”. He added, “LNDR has not gone away, I’ve already asked that it be part of the Limerick Mayor’s work for next tenure, he didn’t say yes, yet. The LNDR is a live project, it is an enabler of so many things, if we can get that project up and running, it will bring life to so many projects”.
“I don’t think the LNDR and UL are inter-dependent,” responded Cllr Begley. “It is misleading to say the two of those should be tied into the other,” he added which Dowling agreed with, “you are absolutely right”.
