Construction of 24 Athlone council homes due to start in April

Westmeath County Council is in the process of appointing a contractor to build 24 housing units in Arcadia, with the local authority targeting an April start date for the construction of the new estate.

The development is being named Greally Park, after Hanna Greally, the late Athlone native who wrote a memorable book about her experience of being incarcerated in St Loman's psychiatric hospital in Mullingar.

The housing development honouring her will be at a site adjacent to the 33-unit Esker Park social housing project which was completed in Arcadia in 2020.

Greally Park will consist of one and two bedroom homes only. It is to include ten two-bedroom houses, a single one-bedroom house, and thirteen one and two-bed apartments.

The council recently advertised for a contractor to build the estate and, according to the tender documents, it's hoped that the work on site will begin in early April.

The development is expected to take 15 months to complete, with the council stating that it would expect to see all of the houses completed in the first twelve months of the contract, with the thirteen apartments to be completed three months later.

"Westmeath County Council will take possession of the eleven houses after the practical completion certificate is issued, and tenants shall be moved in," the instruction to tender states.

It added that the contractor should have all of the site development works completed inside a year, and that once the houses were finished it should "fence off the apartment block area until it, too, is completed".

Contractors who may be interested in constructing the estate are being invited to attend a site visit on the mornings of February 8 and 9.

The closing date for applications for the project to be submitted to the council is Monday, February 27.