The Kanturk Community Astro Turf Pitch Project

It was recently decided lately to pursue the possibility of getting and developing a Community Astro Turf Pitch for Kanturk & the local area. This is a follow up to another attempt six years ago to make this project happen but at that time which was in recessionary times & very little funding available plans were shelved.

After a few meetings with delegates from Kanturk Rugby, Soccer & GAA Clubs, Colaiste Treasa & Scoil Mhuire Secondary Schools,  St. Colmans Boys National School & Kanturk Girls National School,  Kanturk Chamber Of Commerce, Kanturk Community Council and Infinity English College to form a committee .

The committee held its first meeting where officers were elected, Thomas Horgan was elected as Chairman, Padraig Breen as Secretary, P.J.Cremin as Treasurer and Tom O’Callaghan as Project Manager and other Committee members representing all the different organisations included Ben Quirke, Derval Vaughan, Miriam Downey, Denis Keating, Tim Noonan,  John Murphy, Michael O’Driscoll with great help & co-operation coming from local politicians John Paul O’Shea, Bernard Moynihan and Michael Moynihan.

The elected Committee then decided that the best course of action was to first of all to first of all to discuss the viability & location of the proposed pitch. The consortium decided that the project was worth going forward with & that the best site was a field that has been used by Kanturk Soccer & Kanturk Rugby clubs in the past and at present was being used by as a training pitch and adjacent to Colaiste Treasa Secondary School, in High Grenane just below Kilroe between Edel Quinn Place & St. Thresas .

The committee decided that the best course of action was first of all to form a limited company followed by creating a Bank Account, contract was made with a local engineer to start the process of getting a planning application ready, but this comes at a cost so we are asking all interested & involved groups for a donation to go ahead with this planning. A website was created plus social media accounts were created. Everything was put in place waiting for the off.

An agreed size of pitch was agreed by the committee, this proposed pitch will be big enough to play competitive adult Rugby & Soccer games but only some GAA games. But the primary function of the astro turf pitch will be for training for the local sports clubs & schools as well as being available to groups for hire. 

For this project to go ahead we do need a full commitment from everyone right across the local community both financially & help. But the rewards for the whole Community will be substantial in the long term & the town will be left with a viable asset which will be of enormous & tremendous benefit to everyone in the short & long term especially our 3 ever developing Sports Clubs & our ever expanding Schools with a flow off benefit to the other organisations.

It is also felt that there would be a foot fall benefit to local businesses all year around as well.

But for this development to work, at some stage we will have to fund raise a substantial sum but as this is planned to be a Community pitch for all local clubs, schools and organisations but we will need the Communities support & a full buy in into the project otherwise it will not work and the town will be left with no Astro Turf pitch which has long been dreamed about.

Let’s make it happen.