Kells wastewater system can cope

The Kells wastewater system has the capacity to cater for all new developments currently in the planning system, councillors were told at a meeting of Kells Town Council on Monday night. Pat Kinsella, the council"s senior executive engineer, told local councillors that there was also sufficient capacity for any of the proposed developments, which were in the active pre-planning stage. Councillors also heard that things were still on track for the new system to come on-stream in 2013. Mr Kinsella told councillors that water quality analysis had shown improvements of the quality of water in the Blackwater in the past year. He explained that work is underway on improvements to the existing system, including a new outfall and storm holding tank, which would improve efficiency. When complete, the system would operate at 10 per cent more than its design capacity. Further optimisation works could also be carried out to increase capacity even further. Area manager Brendan McGrath told the meeting that, nationally, we have EU obligations under the Water Framework Plan and, so, Government funding for wastewater schemes had not been touched in recent cutbacks. He said the proposed new scheme was on track for 2013. Cllr Sean Drew said he was delighted to hear that the capacity was there and that, therefore, there would be no restrictions on the development of the town centre. Cllr Brian Curran said the message was that Kells was still open for business.