An artists impression of the new plans for Lucan Sarsfields GAA Club
Lucan GAA plans for full size all-weather pitch
LUCAN Sarsfields GAA Club have submitted a planning application to redevelop and implement a full size all weather pitch.
‘The club is always increasing in size and membership with new facilities being desperately needed as growth continues.
“In recent years our membership has expanded to 3,800 members.
‘We field over 165 teams and with our existing playing surfaces, we find that from September to March every year we simply cannot cater for the 165 teams that we are fielding in terms of training slots.”
“The club has had to look for alternatives for a number of years now, regularly renting playing premises from other parties throughout the winter months.
‘This is not sustainable in the long run and can incur a significant cost on both the club as well as members/parents who may have to travel further distances depending on the location of a suitable pitch.” said Lucan Sarsfields offical Colm Farrell.
Farrell is confident that the application will go through.
This redevelopment has been on the club’s agenda for some time now with initial planning permission applications stretching all the way back to 2022 with several things being tweaked along the way in order to comply with the council’s guidelines.
“Since August last year we have been busy compiling our response to the request for information from the council.
‘That response includes significant modifications to our lighting proposal, it included significant modifications to our ecological report.
‘We developed a bio diversity plan for the site and we conducted traffic management surveys and we did our engineering analysis on drainage.
‘Over the last two to three years we have spent significant amounts of money on tree surveys, ecological surveys, lighting surveys and drainage surveys.
‘We believe that we have answered to the best of our ability the five components of the RFI that the council issued to us.”
With continued population growth around Lucan and surrounding areas it is clear that the club will need to expand facilities going forward.
“When you look at what’s being built in Clonburris, essentially the two nearest clubs to service Clonburris will be Round Tower and ourselves so I would expect that there will be an expansion of our numbers from Clonburris when it is built.
‘As Adamstown continues to be built out and further developments, if Lucan continues to be built and expand we expect that our numbers would continue to expand and we will of course endeavour to be able to accommodate these numbers. “ – Colm Farrell on the continued development of the Lucan area.
