In Portmarnock, a call for the council to buy and open up an underused community hall

The car park at the Portmarnock Adventure Club Hall on the Strand Road was full on Friday afternoon.

On the outside of the red-brick hall, there was a pale outline where a sign used to be. Inside, the fluorescent lights were switched on.

The hall is only being used by the local boxing club at the moment, said John Fahy over the deli counter in the town’s butchers, across the street.

Yet, it’s a prime location in the heart of Portmarnock, said Social Democrats Councillor Joan Hopkins at a meeting of the council’s Howth-Malahide Area Committee on 4 September. “And it’s underutilised.”

Hopkins, at the meeting, proposed that the council buy the hall and the land around it, as it moves forward with a new cycle and pedestrian greenway from Sutton to Malahide.

The council has its greenway plan, backed with money for public- realm works, Hopkins said on Thursday evening. “It doesn’t extend to community facilities.”

But there is always a pushback with major projects if communities feel they are losing out on things, she says. “And I feel strongly that this is an opportunity to make provision for community facilities in the heart of the village.”

There is a chance here to do something with the community space, she says. “We could completely transform the public realm there, and it would require the council to think outside the box.”

The council is looking to buy – with a compulsory purchase order (CPO) – some land around the hall that it needs for the new road layout as part of the greenway works, said Shane Satell, a senior executive engineer with the council, at the area committee.

But the hall isn’t currently within the scope of the project, he said.

A council spokesperson said, on Tuesday evening, that there was no more information right now on whether the council would CPO the hall itself.

Pathways and greenways

The Portmarnock Adventure Club Hall opened in the late 1970s, says Fahy of J.W. Smyth Family Butchers, who is also a director of the Portmarnock Adventure Club CLG.

“A local landowner gifted the land to the community,” he says.

But there has long been disagreement among locals as to who that landowner was, he said on the phone on Tuesday morning.

It was used by the community, he says. “It was a focal point. It was the community hall of Portmarnock to congregate.”

The hall hosted Scouts and bingo, he says. “It was also used for the school as a P.E. hall and the boxing club has been in it since day one.”

As Portmarnock grew into a much larger village, it got the local leisure centre in the 1980s – and the hall was used less and less, he says. “The school got its own place to do P.E. The scouts got their own scout den.”

Only the boxing club stayed on but just for three days a week, he says. “And as a consequence of that, the building and its surrounds have become a little bit tired in their presentation.”

In October 2017, Fahy co-founded the Portmarnock Adventure Club Hall CLG, with a view to oversee the renovation and opening up to the local community of the hall, according to the company’s constitution.

It needs money now, he says. “To not try and develop it would be a mistake.”

But the trouble is that, of the trustees who managed the hall, and are not involved in the CLG, only one is left alive and they cannot find the title deeds, he says. “There is a path to the deeds, but I need to have some buy-in from the local community to be able to achieve that title.”

Otherwise, the best option would be for the council to take the building in hand with the cooperation of the local community, he says.

“The best thing they could do with that building is, whilst they are doing a cycleway, to regenerate that site with counselling rooms for kids, maybe a digital library or a few other important services,” says Fahy.

There are many potential uses, says Barry McGuire, a personal fitness trainer from Portmarnock who lives now in Coolock. “It’s slap bang in the middle of the village, beside the butchers and coffee shop, near the beach.”

His own proposal is to turn it into a new gym, he says. “I’ve spoken to a ton of local people, and to be honest, a lot of people are a little embarrassed, saying it’s a shame.”

Hopkins, the Social Democrats councillor, says the hall could be used for youth services, housing, a library or a community centre. “Or whatever the community there deem a priority for them.”

It would be a missed opportunity not to deliver a village square or a place for people to meet on its lands while the council develops its greenway, she says.

A more limited plan?

Satell, the senior executive engineer, said that early designs for the Sutton to Malahide greenway are being finalised. Tree and topographical surveys and ground investigation works are done, he said.

And, once the preliminary design process is finalised, the council would be preparing its planning application to go to An Bord Pleanála, he said.

But that’s all to do with lands around the hall. Not the hall itself.

Fingal’s mayor, the Labour Councillor Brian McDonagh, said at the area meeting that he thought the hall would be a prime site for a multi-use community centre.

“But it’s a complicated site with a complicated history on it,” he said.

The difficulty with CPO-ing the site is that there is currently some community use, he said. “The concern always is, of the community, is that a CPO may lead to a legal process which will lead to loss of control of the site.”

When it was handed over more than four decades ago, it was given on the basis that it would be used for the benefit of the youth in Portmarnock, he said.

“If that changed in any shape, way or form, then you could be with the circumstances where others may lay claim and you’d lose control of the site,” he said.

The council’s community department has agreed to carry out a community-needs analysis for Portmarnock, McDonagh said.

Satell, the senior executive engineer, said that the CPO of land at the site’s boundaries is to provide the new cycle and footpaths.

But the council is open to engaging with the Portmarnock Adventure Club Hall’s committee to do works within the car park, beyond what is strictly required for the scheme, he said.

The council has been asked to look at bike parking, a seated area, and rearranging  parking, he said. “We have a draft landscape plan done that we can discuss with the committee there at the appropriate time when the design is finalised.”