Old Sweeneys garden centre. Photo; Mary Browne
Old Sweeneys garden centre. Photo; Mary Browne
Any hopes that Sweeney’s Garden Centre in New Ross could be tidied up prior to its potential sale have been put on hold after district manager Alan Fitzhenry said ownership issues were preventing the council from carrying out works there. At the September meeting of the New Ross Municipal District (NRMD) Councillor Michael Sheehan said the derelict site was giving visitors to the town a poor impression.
“Can we clean up Sweeney’s Garden Centre while we wait for an alternative plan for it?” he asked. “When you’re driving into New Ross from that side and you see those empty shells outside it gives the place a really bad look; now that we own it we should do something with it, either clean it up and sell it or clean it up and use it.”
Confirming that the person the council was engaging with regarding the purchase of the site was “no longer interested”, Mr Fitzhenry said there were ongoing complications when it came to carrying out clean-up works there.
“We recently conducted a clean up at Sweeney’s but some of the infrastructure there isn’t our property to remove just yet, so we can’t do anything until a decision is made,” he said. “We can look at it once it’s been regularised. And we will continue to look at other options in relation to that site.”
Mr Fitzhenry confirmed that there was still a commercial lease on the property before director of services Eamonn Hore offered some further explanation.
“There’s two issues, the garden centre itself, that will have to be bought out, and then there’s the memorial service which has to be dealt with properly,” he said. “We have put a value on the garden centre. But we haven’t put a value on the other part yet.”
Funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme.
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