A property consultant to the company that is trying to begin work on a €37m project which will deliver 220 new jobs on a Navan site has taken issue with comments from Meath County Council, director of services, Martin Murray, at a recent meeting with councillors in Trim.
Paul Daly is assisting Killeen PMC in their efforts to build a 156 bed nursing home and 40 two bed apartments on a site at Elliot’s Mill on the county towns Mill Lane.
The company were twice refused planning permission by the council but got the go ahead from An Bord Pleanála last year.
However they have been unable to put a shovel in the ground as the council is refusing to take the area in charge claiming there are legal issues surrounding a small car park in the area, which appears to have no ownership registered against it.
However the council did give planning permission for the parking facility some years back even though no registered owner could be found then either.
Daly told Meath Live, ‘How on one hand can Martin Murray claim, as he did in Trim, that the council engages with owners of derelict properties in a bid to bring those to the housing market and yet at the same time the council is prevaricating and delaying the building of forty new apartments.
‘Killeen’s development would not alone assist with much needed housing they have already engaged with the HSE to say their nursing home beds could be used to facilitate patients who might otherwise have to be placed on trolleys.
‘There’s also the not insignificant fact of €670k in planning contributions which Killeen have to give the council once the job begins.
‘If they really want this project, which is obviously beneficial to the town, to go ahead then the council needs to deliver on what Mr Murray said and start engaging with people, two years is long enough for then to be waiting, the time for words has passed it is time for action.’
