Fingal County Council to extend mobile sauna scheme to more locations
After the success of its Mobile Sauna Scheme in some of its beaches, Fingal County Council (FCC) is now working on introducing the scheme to more locations this year.
A councillor called for the scheme to be extended to more parts of the county, including Howth, where people have expressed a demand for them.
"The pilot scheme which allowed saunas at five council sites in Skerries, Balbriggan, Rush, Lucan, and two in Portmarnock has proved to be very popular,” said Fianna Fáil councillor for Howth-Malahide, Cathal Haughey.
“I have also noticed more of these saunas popping up on private land and not necessarily even near beaches, such as in the car parks of sports clubs.”
Cllr Haughey asked the council at a recent meeting if there are plans to consider new locations for the scheme.
“I have been contacted by others who are interested in providing saunas in other council-owned locations, one suggested for Howth, and that is why I raised this question with the council,” he said.
Last year, the council’s operations department said it was extending the pilot scheme to cover the off-peak season between November 1 to March 31.
Operators are charged a trading license fee according to its Casual Trading Byelaws – €1,000 for the full season and €500 for off-peak season.
Previously a FCC spokesperson told the Irish Independent that, if the pilot is “successful and profitable”, the Casual Trading Byelaws 2021 will be reviewed and “provision will be made for sauna locations at a number of the Fingal beaches”.
"Submissions for the scheme were being accepted until the end of February,” said FCC’s Director of Operations, Mary T Daly.
“FCC is currently in the process of reviewing its Casual Trading Bylaws, part of this review includes the assessment of locations across the Fingal administrative area for mobile saunas.
“A new draft Casual Trading Byelaws will be presented to the council for adoption once all the requisite steps in this process are complete.”
Currently, the scheme has seen mobile saunas including in Martello Tower in Balbriggan, Red Island Car Park in Skerries and Portmarnock South Beach Car Park.
To be considered, those interested were asked to select their top three preferred locations. For multiple operators interested in the same site, a lottery process was used to select them.