Kenaidan Contractors has signed a €1.6m contract with Mayo County Council for the Lough Lannagh Outdoor Pursuits and Climbing Wall project in Castlebar, moving a scheme first proposed 14 years ago into its construction phase.

Kenaidan Contractors, headquartered in Kilkelly, Co Mayo, is a general building, civil engineering and electrical contractor established in 2002, with a portfolio spanning marine and coastal works, pier construction and public sector building projects across Ireland.

Mayo County Council, the project client, is delivering the scheme at Lough Lannagh alongside the existing leisure centre and swimming pool, adding an 11-metre competition-standard climbing wall, a new gym and outdoor activity facilities.

Minister of State Alan Dillon called the signing a major win for Castlebar, noting he had worked with Minister Patrick O'Donovan and the Sports Capital team over the summer to secure the additional funding needed.

The contract is valued at €1.6m (£1.36m); the project first secured Sports Capital Programme funding in 2022 but was delayed after a tender revealed a funding shortfall, later addressed through additional grant support.

The contract signing closes out a 14-year gap between political announcement and construction start, a timeline that says more about small-scale public capital delivery in Ireland than about this project specifically.

The climbing wall was first proposed in 2012 as part of a €12.5m National Outdoor Pursuits Academy for Castlebar, with its budget set at just over €230,000 in 2022 before a tender revealed costs had already risen past €1.1m by 2024, ahead of the €1.6m figure now attached to the signed contract.

The signing lands alongside other Castlebar capital works moving through Mayo County Council at the same time, including a separate €2.22m contract with MVS Construction to convert the town's former Post Office into a Community Youth Resource Centre, part of a wider €2.5m package of contracts tied to the council's Historic Core Reactivation project.

For the sector, small municipal leisure schemes carry much the same cost-escalation risk profile as far larger civic projects, and contractors bidding for this tier of public work should expect funding gaps and phased top-up grants, rather than a single upfront allocation, to remain the norm on similarly modest capital projects.

Source: Irish Independent / Mayo News / Mayo County Council