Fears the Norman Visitor Centre won’t go ahead dismissed as Wexford council says it is awaiting ‘top-up funding’

By Simon Bourke, Wexford People

Officials in Wexford County Council (WCC) have dismissed suggestions that the Norman Visitor Centre in New Ross won’t be built after one local councillor expressed his worry at the time it was taking for construction to commence.

The new attraction, which will be built on the site of the former Bank of Ireland and grain store buildings, was initially scheduled for completion in the summer of 2027. However, WCC was forced to apply for additional funding earlier this year as it seeks to develop a “world-class” project for the town.

Explaining the reasons for the delay, Sean Meyler, Head of Special Projects with WCC, said an application for “top-up funding” had been submitted to the government on July 28 of this year and he was expecting “news on that by the end of November”.

“We have a preferred tender identified so if we get good news regarding the funding we’ll be on site by the start of 2027,” he added.

However, the lack of movement on the project was making Councillor Pat Barden nervous.

“Was it not priced up already?” he asked. “I’m a bit worried it’s not going to get funding. My information was it went to tender and tenders were received, and the builders were told it’s not going ahead.

“If the builders were submitting their prices and it came to a halt, well, that’s a fairly worrying development. Are we going to get funding for this?”

While a tender for the development had been submitted earlier this year, Mr Meyler said that had been done with the express intention of keeping the project moving.

“We did go out to tender in February of this year, tenders came in and we assessed them,” he said. “At the time we had sought top-up funding from the department. We already have capital funding of €5.5m which we received in 2019 to cover four different projects in the town.

“There wasn’t enough left in the kitty to do all that we want to do with the Norman Visitor Centre, so we had to apply for more funding.”

“If we knew we needed more money why go to tender?” asked Cllr Barden.

“We wanted to keep the process moving,” answered Mr Meyler. “So, when we get confirmation of the additional money we will have already completed the tender process. We have notified the successful tender of the situation. We have no reason to think we won’t get the additional funding.”

All this talk about money and delays in the project led Cllr John Dwyer to suggest that those responsible for sending the Normans here in the first place should do their bit.

“As we are celebrating the most successful invasion, and integration, in the history of the county, are we going to the French government to request possible funding for this project?” he asked.

Unsure if the question was being asked tongue in cheek, director of services Eamonn Hore responded accordingly.