WORK on the construction of a new 20 acre Town Park in the Ballymacool area of Letterkenny is due to begin within four weeks. Town Clerk, Mr Paddy Doherty confirmed this week he was due to meet the approved contractor for a pre-construction meeting.
The ¤3.75 million park will have features such as a multi- youth games area, play area along with various walk routes around the site at Ballymacool.
It will include a link from the town through the park to Conwal. It will also have 44 car parking spaces, two bus parking spaces, a number of secluded gardens, ornate garden furniture and scenic walkways.
Other proposals that have been put forward include bicycle tracks, kite flying, duck ponds and crazy golf.
Speaking at Monday night's Town Council meeting Councillor Dessie Larkin suggested the commercial potential of the new park should be taken into consideration.
He asked for a full report on the plans for the park.
He outlined that other town parks in different cities throughout the world catered for those who spent a while in the parks.
"If you go to some town parks you have the opportunity to buy sandwiches, soup or coffee. Maybe this is something we can consider here," he said.
"I think that the story has been lost due to the debate surrounding the leisure centre and the new arts centre. We took our eye of the ball nearly with what is happening around the park. It is double the size of the present park. What I am hoping is that we do not duplicate what we have. I hope that this park will slightly differ. I would like different age groups to be catered for as well from the very old to the very young so that everybody can get something from their town park," Cllr Larkin said.
"Cairde le Cheile are in the process of regenerating the old church at the existing town park. The group have opened up a coffee dock and are going to start a gym there. I think that this is fantastic and that we can incorporate the same thing in the new town park," he said.
The contractor is RJ McKelvey from Co Tyrone and the tender is ¤3.4 million but along with fees the total cost of the project is ¤3.75 million.
Councillor Jean Crossan suggested that a ski slope would be a good idea.
"We thought that the idea of a skate park was off the wall, well I have an idea that is equally fantastic, I do think we should look for a ski slope. After all it is an elevated site," she said.
Funding will come from the sale of existing council assets (¤1million) along with ¤600,000 from the Development Contribution Scheme and the balance from the council's own resources and state grants.
The old reservoir site Glencar has been sold to facilitate this development.
