West Waterford Athletics Club is exploring the potential of developing an athletics track.
A Sub-Committee was formed in April to delve further into the proposal for the region.
Sub-Committee Member Cáit Verling spoke to WLR Sport. She outlined the reasoning behind the proposal.
"The problem with it is that we don't have a track facility in West Waterford so we send athletes to Munster and National tracks for races but they don't have any facility. There is the track in Waterford but it's impossible to get slots on that track for West Waterford clubs. We haven't ever been able to do that so it just means that for people who want to progress especially for children coming up along now that really want to progress in athletics, to try and develop somewhere for them to train, somewhere fantastic."
Cáit delved further into the challenges currently being faced by competitive members.
"Children and young people, especially juveniles are going and they are competing in Munster and National track races never having had a chance to train on a track which is kind of unbelievable. So they go up and they run on tracks around the country but they've never been able to train on them so they haven't got the specific training for it. They're usually training in a field. Also for events in the area, we can't host events in our area because we don't have the track facility where we can do that."
Cáit also outlined the facilities available elsewhere in Munster.
"East Cork are trying to develop one as well. There have been facilities built in Clonmel, in Newcastle West, and in places where there is a lower catchment area than West Waterford in terms of population and they have managed to develop absolutely amazing facilities and I think around the country now there is real impetus behind this and energy behind this."
Delving into the potential costs, Cáit says it is dependent on the way in which a club wishes to build.
"I think it depends cause people build them in different ways. Sometimes people start with a gravel track and then they build onwards from there. Then some people build from scratch. The cost would be pretty high. It would probably be up in the millions for something that's state of the art. But it doesn't have to be built all at one time, there are different ways of doing it.
"We're just exploring all of that at the moment and we haven't come to any decisions about that."
Asked what a facility of this nature would provide the members:
"I think it would allow people to have a proper state of the art eight lane track facility and field events. It would give people the chance to train on a proper eight lane track. That's a really high standard and that will give them a chance to really improve their performance."
"I think for Ireland as a country we believe we can compete with the best, we can be up there, we can have the facilities. There's absolutely no reason why we can't have those facilities within cycling, walking, short-driving distance for athletes of all ages."
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