Progress on New Library

Clare People, Tuesday, 21st November 2006

The prospect of a new state-of-the-art library for Ennis is one step closer with the identification of a possible site, Ennis Town Councillors have been told. But the plan will have to be moved on quickly, the members were warned.

Council officials told the meeting that the plans to build a new library had met with a positive response from the national library body and from the Department of the Environment. But they are aware that capital funding for library building projects "may not be available in the future so we must move this on".

The site that has been identified is in County Council ownership and fronts on to Bank Place, taking in one third of an acre of the Post Office field. Options for carrying out the development are that the County Council could undertake it from start to finish, or a joint project could be developed between Ennis Town Council and the local authority, as happened in the Lees Road.

The old library building would be sold to help fund the new project, which Town Manager Tom Coughlan said would "not be repeated for the next 150 years so we need a state-of-the-art facility". The part of the current library building that is listed would remain in public ownership, he said.

Before work can go ahead, Town Council members were told, the site would have to be re-zoned and the process of design and tender gone through.

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