I thank the Chair. I am the chief executive of Roscommon County Council. With me here today, as outlined already, are Mark Keaveney, director of services with responsibility for regeneration, and Úna Ní Chuinn, the town centre first regeneration officer. I thank the joint committee for the opportunity to attend today to discuss Our Rural Future and the implementation of town centre first policies.
By way of background, in 2013, the Government appointed the Commission for Economic Development of Rural Areas, CEDRA, to look at the economic development of rural areas, which resulted in the CEDRA report. The result outlined 34 recommendations towards the achievement of the commission’s vision that rural Ireland would become a dynamic, adaptable and outward-looking multisectoral economy supporting vibrant, resilient and diverse communities experiencing a high quality of life with an energised relationship between rural and urban Ireland which would contribute to its sustainability for the benefit of society as a whole. The report strongly advocated a community-led development approach.
At about the same time, the Government outlined its policies in relation to an enhanced role for local government in the areas of community, economic and enterprise development, as envisaged under the local government sectoral strategy to support economic recovery and jobs and Putting People First - Action Programme for Effective Local Government. This was formalised in the Local Government Reform Act 2014. In addition, leading on from the Local Government Reform Act 2014, the public participation network was established nationwide to give communities a greater and more structured way of participating in local decision-making processes. These policies, legislation and expanded role for local authorities led to the proposal to establish town teams as an integral part of Roscommon County Council’s vision to energise and reinvigorate the six main towns as vehicles for driving community and economic development within the county. The towns are: Roscommon town, the county town, Strokestown, Monksland, Ballaghaderreen, Castlerea and Boyle. The project was initiated by Roscommon County Council as part of the new enhanced role for local authorities.
From a funding perspective, in 2014, the council chose to forgo a 2% reduction in rates. A 1% reduction was given and the remaining 1% was used to establish the business, enterprise and innovation fund. This fund, totalling €100,000, was used to fund the town teams initiative with the belief that it would help to create jobs, facilitate start-up businesses and, above all, reinstil a pride of place in our towns. A core principle of the town team concept is that those who live and work within the towns should be involved in the design and delivery of solutions for their towns. During 2015, the then Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government sought applications from local authorities for suitable projects within individual rural economic development zones, REDZ, as they were known, as identified in the CEDRA report. Roscommon County Council received €75,000 to support the development of the town teams and the grant was divided equally among the teams. Subsequently, additional funding under a REDZ pilot initiative for town teams was received. These short-term initiatives began to breathe new life into communities that witnessed the worst effects of the recession through closure of businesses in the heart of all six towns. Longer term deliverable and realistic initiatives then formed part of future town team plans.
In 2016, Roscommon County Council agreed that its town team funding for the next four years could be front-loaded or rolled over to secure matched funding for other grant sources. This gave the town teams ownership of the projects they wished to develop. Roscommon County Council has continued to provide an annual grant to the six town teams, with the 2024 allocation of €12,500 per team from our revenue budget. From a new policy direction perspective from 2015 to 2016 under Realising Our Rural Potential – Action Plan for Rural Development, the Government has put increasingly greater funding into rural support schemes such as CLÁR, town and village renewal, and the outdoor recreation infrastructure scheme. These have provided a step change in community-led activity, with the town teams being joined by a myriad of other community groups seeking to become involved in community-led development. Roscommon County Council is in the envious position of having very strong town teams and community groups that have the capacity to develop proposals for the development of their area and the capacity to deliver on these projects. The council also established a regeneration unit in 2018, which, with the economic development unit, has been crucial to supporting communities to build capacity to develop and deliver projects, assisting communities to deliver small- and medium-scale projects, developing plans to guide the development of projects in an integrated holistic manner, allowing the utilisation of multiple funding sources to deliver on the objectives for an area, and allowing the council to build the expertise and experience necessary to be able to, with communities, develop and deliver large-scale projects in an holistic and efficient manner.
The development of this regeneration unit took a leap of faith on the council’s part and a risk in relation to the funding of the positions, but it has paid off in a myriad of ways. The publication of Project 2040 and the establishment of the rural regeneration and development fund and indeed the urban regeneration and development fund has enabled projects of scale, identified and promoted by the community, to be delivered by the local authority. Our Rural Future Rural Development Policy 2021-2025, published in 2021, represents a new milestone in the approach to rural development by adopting a more strategic, ambitious and holistic approach to investing in and maximising opportunities for rural areas. This policy is built around the centrality of people who make up the communities that support and maintain the fabric of rural Ireland, around the places where our rural communities live, where businesses start up and grow and which are gateways to our heritage, culture and natural environment, and around the possibilities for the rural area. Since this policy was published, there has been a clear shift in the strategic cross-government and cross-funding connections, leading to an increased level of interlinkage and scale of projects and ambition for communities and their places.
Arising from objectives in Our Rural Future and Housing for All, the town centre first policy, published in 2022, sets out a framework to facilitate and resource each town to chart its own future through a tailored plan, developed by a collaborative town team and supported by the local authority. Roscommon County Council put forward Boyle as a pilot town centre first town in 2018 and developed the Boyle 2040 town centre first plan that, to date, has formed the basis for multimillion euro developments in Boyle, funded through a range of Government schemes, as outlined in table 1, as well as informing the town centre first policy. I will not read through table 1 in detail, but there is effectively €14 million of community and council-led projects being put in place in the town of Boyle. Roscommon County Council has appointed a town regeneration officer, funded by the Department of Rural and Community Development, who works within the regeneration and economic development unit. This has brought a renewed focus in our towns and our town teams as we have just completed our Strokestown town centre first plan and are preparing our Castlerea plan.
From an outcome of the rural development policies perspective, rural development policy and the associated policy and plan-led funding has been a game changer for County Roscommon. As well as the development of community, rural and town-based facilities, places, trails, tourism infrastructure, etc., it has been a real driver of community and town team participation and pride in place, confidence in communities and vision for a better future. As a demonstration of this, I have outlined in table 2 the scale of projects, both in the implementation phase and being prepared, and showing the ambitious plans for the future. Again, not to go through it in detail but if all comes to fruition, we are looking at circa €164 million in projects, as detailed in table 2.
The next piece of my overview is photographs of some of the projects delivered in County Roscommon. We have our new town centre square in County Roscommon with a beautiful covered space and a place for gathering and celebration. We have an example of Cloonfad village with an outdoor meeting area. We have our life sciences innovation hub in Monksland. We have images of the old Royal Hotel in the centre of Boyle. It was derelict but now is the site of a new innovation hub on the top two floors with a visual arts centre on the ground floor leading into a beautiful park area to the rear towards the pleasure grounds in Boyle. Moreover, further funding has been received in the order of €4 million to €6 million for the construction of a new state-of-the-art 24-7 library that will be at the rear of that facility, bringing the entirety of the town of Boyle back to a new, regenerated centre.
As for the future direction, the development and implementation of projects, particularly projects of scale and where integration of funding streams is required, is heavily dependent on the capacity of the local authority regeneration and economic development teams to deliver on the vision of the town teams and communities. The town teams and community groups are volunteers with other obligations and generally are limited in the range of skills necessary to deliver complex projects. It is vital that the Department of Rural and Community Development continues to support local authority resources in a sustainable manner in order that we can maintain our regeneration and economic teams to suppose these community and Town Teams.
There is a broad range of financial and other support available to bring vacant properties in towns and villages back into residential use or community use, including building acquisition measures, town and village schemes, Croí Cónaithe, energy efficiency funding and social housing options. Many towns also need a stimulus to encourage the development of commercial, business and mixed opportunities in these vacant buildings and to bring them back into use in town centres where they will generate footfall, vibrancy and economic activity.
In light of the very large and welcome funding for rural areas through the various Government schemes, there is an increasing burden on the financial resources of many local authorities in terms of match funding. This is now at the point where some local authorities are not in a position to apply for large projects through the Department of Rural and Community Development or the Department of housing and local government schemes. We welcome a discussion and consideration of the match funding requirements of both future and current projects.
In conclusion, I will take this opportunity to highlight a few key points. The rural support scheme and RRDF and URDF funding are very welcome and have been game changers in terms of rural development and incentivising economic and community development and participation. The actual amount of funding that is involved is relatively modest on an annual basis in terms of Ireland's overall expenditure. The development of policy over the past eight to ten years has helped to focus and develop a more strategic approach to rural development and funding at both national and local level. It is vital that local authorities are supported and resourced to continue to lead in this crucial area of supporting town teams and community groups to deliver real economic and community development in their areas. The match funding requirement is becoming a real issue for many local authorities and is putting increasing strain on small local authority revenue budgets, particularly rural local authorities, and is putting some local authorities in a position where they have to undertake significant borrowing. I thank the Chair and the committee for this opportunity to contribute to the committee’s work on this very important topic and look forward to the discussion.
