Mayo sport obliged to embrace a partnership approach to future investments

People involved directly in sport are understandably too preoccupied with matters of immediacy to spend too much time on forward, infrastructural planning.

So it was a good idea for Castlebar Chamber of Commerce to take up the idea by former Mayo GAA board chairman Liam Moffatt to appoint consultants to compile a study of the economic, social and environmental value of sport in Castlebar.

As it turned out, the principle findings could be applied to any community in Mayo or, indeed, across the country.

The clear message is that all sports should work together as allocations under further sports capital funding will be directly linked to a partnership approach in the application process.

In others words, if GAA, soccer, rugby, athletics and basketball need extra facilities in their communities - and which they certainly do in Castlebar and particularly so in the area of women's sport - then they all need to come around the same table and start planning their submissions together.

This approach is exactly what the Department of Sport is insisting on, as articulated by the department’s Minister of State, Thomas Byrne, during his visit to the ATU Mayo to launch the study.

It’s no secret that Mayo GAA has been seeking to build a centre of excellence in Castlebar. The organisation had been in negotiations with Mayo County Council and a landowner in respect of a site at Lough Lannagh.

But the plan fell through when it was discovered that the site was unsuitable for the development of the number of pitches required.

The proposal remains very much on the GAA’s agenda, albeit now more focused in the vicinity of MacHale Park.

However, as suggested by Councillor Al McDonnell at the launch, the council is in negotiations with the HSE regarding a 30-acre site adjacent to St. Anthony’s Special School.

While these talks are taking much longer than originally expected, this is where the GAA could find their Centre of Excellence being located if it is prepared to work alongside other sports in the overall development of a site which would also incorporate soccer pitches, rugby pitches, an athletics track, a basketball pavilion and sporting facilities for those with special and other needs.

All on the one site.

Funded by a joint application.

And with funding from the department as well as the relevant national sporting bodies.

That’s the way forward.

This observer hopes it happens. It should happen.

But it will require a lot of brains and leadership to get it over the line.

That’s the position as it stands and it’s good that the debate is happening once and for all.