Plans unveiled seeking to turn Athlone into Ireland's first green city by 2040
The CEO and chair of Ballymore first detailed the plan in an interview today with
The Business Post
. The plans have subsequently been announced by his firm.
Included in the plan, which he says has been in the works for seven years, are blueprints for a 5,000-bed student accommodation village in order to grow the population of Athlone TU to 25,000 students.
It also intends to revamp the Shannonside town centre, turning it into a riverfront city, and create a road network suitable for electric vehicles, driverless busses, cyclists and pedestrians.
New health, educational, arts and sporting facilities are also included in the plan, which works under the estimate that the population of the town will grow to 100,000.
A total of 20,000 zero-carbon homes are also included in the developer's vision.
Alongside development works, Mulryan proposes that 5,000 hectares of surrounding land is allocated for rewilded wetlands, callows and rewetting of bogs.
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The plan estimates that the town's population will reach the 100,000 mark by 2040.
Ballymore hopes to secure private and public investment for its plan. It has also called for the adoption of the National Planning Framework to allow for the delivery of educational, residential, commercial and biodiverse infrastructure.
Athlone and the surrounding areas must also be declared as nationally important strategic, enterprise and biodiversity zones, the firm said.
It believes the blueprints are credible to address Ireland's demographic and environmental changes, as well as developing away from the East Coast.
The firm said the plans have already been presented to 'senior policy makers' on a local and national level. Mulryan has also put together a steering committee for the project.
The steering committee includes Mulryan, former Revenue boss Josephine Feehily, chair of Global Private Equity at Goldman Sachs Adrian Jones, founder of private equity firm Alchelyst Joan Kehoe, former president of DCU Brian MacCraith, CEO of Irish Rail Jim Meade and deputy managing director of Ballymore Linda Mulryan-Condron.
'We are sharing that vision now with wider Irish society, and we will do all we can to help it become a reality,' Mulryan said.
'But this plan needs to be driven from the top by government – by this administration and by the successor governments that take office in the years ahead – if it is to come to pass.'
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