Dept in talks on Kells school

Department of Education officials have begun pre-planning discussions about its preferred Cavan Road, Kells, site for the town"s new Eureka Secondary school, it emerged this week. Kells area manager Brendan McGrath told Monday"s meeting of the Kells Area Council that details of the Department"s findings on the proposed Navan Road site would form part of the available file once a planning application had been submitted. The Department could seek a material contravention of the existing Kells Development Plan, which included the preference for the Navan Road campus. Cllr Liz McCormack said members had been told the matter would come back after six months, following the taking of the area council vote. The Department had been 'slow' as there had been turnover of staff at its building section in Tullamore, responded the manager. The school board of management had grown impatient since nothing was happening about the Navan Road site, said Cllr Bryan Reilly. Both the board and Department were now pushing the building forward. Everyone wanted a new school, said Cllr Eugene Cassidy, who was joined by Cllr Michael Gallagher in claiming that a Navan Road landowner who had indicated his preparedness to release land for the school there had never been contacted by the Department. It was all 'a smokescreen by the Department, it"s going to juggle two balls and do nothing, like it"s doing in Navan,' added the Nobber councillor. The Department had caused nothing to happen at the Navan Road, said Cllr Gallagher.