Council get its hands on five acres in centre of Naas

AFTER 27 years of controversy and 11 years already in public ownership, it looks like Kildare County Council is finally set to receive over five acres (2.5 hectares) of town centre canal-side lands – very close to De Burgh Gardens – and expects to find out before the end of the month.

The parcel of land is the other side of Mill Lane from De Burgh’s, between Mill Lane Nursing Home and the canal, and is known locally as McInerney Lands – after the last builders to own it prior to their liquidation.

At a recent meeting of the Naas Municipal District, cllr Bill Clear made a formal enquiry about the parcel of land. ‘Can the council provide an update on the ownership transfer of the McInerney Lands to the council?’ he asked.

There was a short, but very succinct reply from the director of corporate and former head of planning Eoghan Ryan. ‘The district manager has sought an update from our solicitors and hopes to have a response in time for the council meeting,’ he said, referring to the March meeting of the full county council, which is scheduled for Monday 31 March.

Speaking after the municipal meeting, cllr Clear explained how it was McInerney land back in the 1990s, but “it went bust, and the government took it over”.

“They were unable to put anything in it, because there is an 80m set-back rule prohibiting development beside the canal,” he said. “The land is now going to the council [pending confirmation] and will most likely be used by the likes of the Men’s Shed, Tidy Towns or for allotments,” cllr Clear said.

Cllr Seamie Moore elaborated: “The McInerney Lands go all the way from the old Convent of Mercy Secondary School beside the Abbey Graveyard, down behind the old gasworks and all the way along the canal for about 700m.

“It’s zoned ‘Residential’ on the Sallins Road, but the back side on the canal side couldn’t be used for residential building because it had to be 100m back from a line in the centre of the canal,” he explained.

“McInerney were building here in 1998, probably close to 100 well-built homes, but got into some trouble and decided to concede the rest of the land to Naas Town Council [dissolved June 2014]. But unfortunately McInerney’s went into liquidation,” continued cllr Moore.

“The liquidator had to hand it over to the Department of Finance in 2014, where the lands wouldn’t’ve been top of their pile, because you couldn’t do much with it,” he said.

“The department wanted to hand it over to Naas Town Council then, but there was a bit of another hiccup [namely, that council’s dissolution] and so now it’s going to Kildare County Council,” said cllr Moore.

“Since last October Lehart’s Solicitors in Kilkenny have had to register this with the Land Registry, and that is another little delay before handover. Because it’s close to the canal bank, some of the land is a swamp, but some of the higher ground is good ground.

“We’d be looking for community development here, a community centre perhaps … but as I’m president of Naas Men’s Shed I’d be hoping to get some land for them here, beside the Women’s Shed,” he said “There’s room in there for a farm for retired animals, perhaps a maze; they could probably build a boardwalk over the swamp for-ecotours to investigate the flora and fauna – not townie things, but somewhere a family could go and get lost for an afternoon,” he suggested.