Major proposals for a mixed-use development of 58 acres of land at Christendom in Ferrybank have been submitted to Kilkenny County Council for inclusion in its local development plan for the general area.
The Master Plan has been devised on behalf of the County Louth based property company Parma Developments, which manages assets for the owners of the AIBP meat processing plant at Christendom.
Currently at public consultation stage, the plan includes a wide range of uses for the land, including residential, commercial, educational, cultural, social and recreational. A hotel and marina are among the proposals and, significantly, a Research Park with links to WIT and a Linear Park which would open up riverside access.
The plan would cost hundreds of millions of euros to implement and ultimately provide thousands of jobs, which is an attractive prospect in the current financial climate.
A full range of experts were engaged in drafting the plan details. They included town planners, architects, urban designers, landscape architects, archaeologists and engineers.
Parma points out in its submission to Kilkenny Co Council that the scheme would be consistent with the promotion of Waterford as a Gateway City, helping to ensure that Waterford’s northern suburbs developed to their full potential and at the same time contributing to the consolidation of Ferrybank’s population base.
As part of the ongoing public consultation process, the plan was presented on Wednesday night to Ferrybank’s Socio-Economic Group in the Atheneum Hotel.
If in due course the project is included as part of the Local Area Plan, planning permission would be sought on an incremental basis, with the development taking place over a period of up to 10 years.
