AGB to buy Pear se Park and develop state oft heart facility
PRICE WILL BE BASED ON WORKS CARRIED OUT AT CLUB GROUNDS NOT LAND VALUE
PEARSE PARK will soon be sold to Arklow Geraldines Ballymoney, paving the way for the development of a centre of excellence on the site.
On Monday night, the county board ratified a proposal by the club to buy the grounds from Wicklow County Board for a sum which has still to be determined.
Secretary of AGB Jimmy Dunne said the decision to buy the grounds has been in the pipeline for some time but it was formally sanctioned on Monday night.
‘We are now in negotiations with the county board who have been custodians of the park for the last 60-odd years. We want to develop the park and the facilities there so the natural thing to do is to buy the grounds from the county board.
‘Currently the only vehicle for getting funds for development is through a club. The county board is unable to download funds from Croke Park or the Leinster Council.
‘ The AGB club is currently going through such a successful period we need to develop a top-class facility and, as such, plan to develop a state of the art complex out in Pearse Park. We finished our grounds in Shelton at Ballymoney and opened them last year and this is the next phase of our five-year development plan for the club.’
Currently Pearse Park is owned by the county board which has five trustees. Under this new plan, the ownership will transfer to Arklow Geraldines Ballymoney. Initially the grounds had been owned by a club but in the late ’50s and early ’60s, when the GAA wasn’t as lucrative as it is now. There were no funds available to clubs to develop grounds and only county boards had access to funds.
At that stage, ownership was transferred to the Wicklow County Board who got a number of grants over the years to develop the grounds.
Jimmy said that over the years the county board had invested in Pearse Park to upgrade the facilities and it is likely that the financial settlement to buy the grounds will be based on the amount of money invested in Pearse Park rather than an actual land value.
‘We’ve haven’t come to an arrangement regarding a financial settlement yet but there is a negotiating team in place to move this forward. The county board has seen the needs of the club and this is a very proactive move. We haven’t come up with any figure yet, we are working on that. But it won’t be on land value. It will be based on the money spent there over time.’
Jimmy said that Pearse Park will still be available to the County Board for matches.
‘We want to develop GAA in Arklow and in Wicklow. This won’t be about excluding the county board. We want to see county and club matches being played there. We hope to build a centre of excellent. We will do whatever is required to make the centre a modern facility which is accessible to everyone.
‘ There was total support on Monday night from the delegates for the proposal and everyone wants to see this development progress.’
While the receipts from the gate of any county matches being held at Pearse Park will go to the provincial council, Jimmy said that AGB will generate money from renting the grounds to the county board for county matches.
Currently the paperwork to complete the deal is with the solicitors and Jimmy said he expects this to be completed within two months maximum. Following on from that, the club will put together blueprints for the development as well as costings and then approach Croke Park.
The GAA headquarters will then look at the plans and allocate capital funding for the development while AGB will also need to fundraise to pay the remainder of the costs.
‘We have a very, very energetic committee and I’ve no doubt they will rise to the challenge’, said Jimmy.
AGB currently has in the region of 450 members fielding 22 teams. There ware no plans to get rid of the current pitches at Shelton following on from the development of Pearse Park.
‘We have a very successful club and if anything we may have to look at buying more land for pitches even with Pearse Park to cope with demand,’ said Jimmy.