'A lot of interest' in Kilcullen Design Statement project
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| Kilcullen street views. |
A town visit by the consultants for the Kilcullen Design Statement project has been postponed until February, due to the pandemic restrictions, writes Brian Byrne.
But a significant amount of information has already been provided to Cathal O'Meara Landscape Architects, based in Cork, who will develop the Design Statement in association with Kilcullen Community Action. The plan will look towards a Kilcullen of 15 or 20 years into the future.
"We have had to pause kicking the project off for a month, but there's great interest in the community about it," says KCA chair Ann Cashman. "Our consultants will already have the benefit of the information we have given them, but a site visit is the key to getting things going. They'll then be able to see physically what they have been looking at in the documents."
The consultants have been given a copy of the Shaffrey Report from the 1970s; the Flynn Furey Environmental Report from 2016 carried out as part of Kildare County Council's Tidy Towns Support Project; the Draft Biodiversity Action Plan currently being developed and implemented by KCA; Market Square surveys by KCA and Kildare County Council and the subsequent draft plan for Market Square; and the Kilcullen 2017 Community Plan developed by KCA and its associated surveys.
The contractors also have Kilcullen's Tidy Towns entry documents; and the last Kilcullen Local Area Development Plan. A list of all businesses and community groups is also being compiled as part of the project.
A town Health Check will also be carried out as part of the project, similar to those done for Kildare and Clane.
For those who want to know more about the whole process, they can access the Heritage Council’s Community-led Village Design Statement Toolkit, available online, and Ballybrilliant showing examples of heritage regeneration in five Irish towns. A European Commission document Streets_People is another useful resource.
The full story of Kilcullen's path towards this point can be read in the Diary's previous articles here.
