Wastewater plant key to Moyvane’s future

IMPROVING wastewater-treatment facilities in Moyvane will be crucial to the village’s future development – and until those improvements happen, there’s only so much even a village full of hardworking, capable volunteers can achieve.

Moyvane Development Association (MDA) launched its Moyvane Community Development Plan in recent days, and it’s an impressive 66-page document built on a phenomenal body of research and engagement. NEWKD funded the project through the LEADER programme, and the final document was prepared by Paul O’Raw and Associates; Dr Brendan O’Keeffe; and Dr Hrishi Balall. MDA Chairperson Carmel Collins explains in the document preface that Moyvane was once a much-more vibrant village, but recession forced residents to migrate, and business closures also had a negative economic and social impact.

But this document provides a roadmap of short-, medium-, and long-term goals across four areas: being an age-friendly community; growing the local economy to grow the population; community vibrancy and village enhancement; and environment and just transition.

“We’ve got a fantastic response, with over 200 people attending on the night in the Marian Hall, and our Minister [Norma Foley] was at the launch for us, and local TDs and Councillors came out as well, so we got great support,” Project Co-ordinator Kieran Kennelly told The Kerryman. “Since we launched the plan, there has been a really positive response from the people of Moyvane, which is great to see, because a huge amount of work has gone in to this and went on for a number of years because we were waiting for the updated 2022 Census information, and we didn’t want to go to print with the 2016 data; it would just be too old, especially with it being a five-year plan.

“When we got those figures at the start of January, we knew we could drive on and launch our document and plan.”

The findings are interesting. The population fell by over 1,000 people in the 50 years leading up to 1971, and while it has stabilised since, it’s still well off the numbers of the early 20th Century.

Just over a quarter of the current population is aged under 18, emphasising the importance of childcare, education, and youth development in the years ahead.

Twenty-six actions for the 2024-2029 period have been identified, and with help from voluntary groups, 13 of those are already being progressed.

But Kieran said that until one of the key actions, the extension of the wastewater system, takes place, there’s only so much the locality can do. Now is the time for national bodies to play their part.

“The biggest item on our agenda is an upgrade of our wastewater treatment plant, a public facility that needs urgent investment,” Kieran said. “Development has been and is being hampered because we’re at capacity with our wastewater-treatment facility.

“We have people who want to build homes in our village, in line with Government policy, and they can’t because we can’t get access to the sewer line.

“These villages in rural Ireland, if you stop moving forward, you go backwards very quickly, and if people from the area can’t build in the area, the children won’t be there. We have capacity in our school, we have decent facilities and a lot of ambition to improve local facilities, but unless we have young people there to use them and enjoy them, we’re kind of at nothing. That’s the seriousness of this.”

The Kerryman has sought comment from Uisce Éireann.