Waterford Council has hit back at claims that it is at fault for delays on the North Quays project.
The local authority was defending itself after reports that the developer had blamed it for the holdup.
Speaking at the recent plenary council meeting Cllr Eddie Mulligan quoted tweets by a Director of Falcon Real Estate Rob Cass which stated that the council was "the reason there are no boots on the ground on the North Quays". The Fianna Fail councillor added that Mr Cass had "said in public that the two years of delays have been due to the non-fulfillment of Council conditions since Oct 2019, he said the council haven't met contractual deliverys and in September are 23 months late".
Responding, Director of Services for Planning and Economic Development Michael Quinn said:
"I think it’s generally speaking not wise to comment on what Rob Cass says, quite frankly. As far as we’re concerned, the project is proceeding according to plan, is going as fast as is possible right across the board both on our side and on the part of the developer. There obviously have been challenges and issues along with the way with a project of this scale but the major big hurdle that we’re facing is the final approval of funding and we’re hopeful that that will be coming very shortly."
Planning permission was granted for the €400million regeneration of the North Quays in July.
Council Chief Executive Michael Walsh said: "Anybody with any bit of cop-on would realise that before you can put boots on the ground on anything, you actually need to have planning permission, that’s the first part. After you have planning permission, you probably need another six months for detailed design, tendering, contract and every other thing. Planning permission was only issued in July so for anybody to be suggesting that we were delaying anything in that process is completely wrong. It’s simply wrong."
Mr Walsh went on: "We certainly equally would accept on our side of the fence that there has been a delay on the funding side of things that we would have preferred to have been a good deal quicker but it just points to the fact that both parties have been operating at the same pace here, is the way I’d describe it, but have no illusion there’s nobody could put boots on the ground without having planning permission in place and a whole host of other things in place after that as well".
