Council gives green light for new Enfield school

Plans for a new primary school in Enfield have moved a step closer after Meath County Council granted planning permission for a new 16-classroom school for St Mary's NS. The new school building will be built on the existing school site and pupils will be accommodated in prefabs during the construction period. The new school is urgently needed to cope with the growing school population with pupil numbers doubling at St Mary's in the past six years from 185 to 370. The original school building has just five classrooms and there are already nine prefabs on site. A tenth prefab is needed for next year when the school also will be gaining an additional teacher. The granting of planning permission has been welcomed by school principal Enda O'Flynn who said it was a "big step forward" towards their new school. "Everyone is delighted and it will give the town a lift. It will be a facility to serve all the community. We hope it will go ahead as soon as possible to give the children here the chance to attend classes in the new school. The parents have been very supportive in fundraising and we would like to see their children get the benefit," he said. Mr O'Flynn explained that the next stage is to get the go-ahead from the Department of Education to go to tender with the project. He said he hoped the Department would see that it is a good time to build in terms of generating employment and also because building costs are now more reasonable. The Enfield school principal also pointed out that significant money was being spent on prefabricated classrooms that could be going towards the cost of the new school and said he hoped the project would go ahead as soon as possible. Meath County Council cathaoirleach and local councillor William Carey has also welcomed the granting of planning permission. He said: "There was a bit of a delay in sorting out a new entrance with the council engineer and school architects, but that that has been sorted out to everyone's satisfaction. I helped arrange a pre-planning clinic and, once that was held and the entrance sorted out, everything was in order. I am delighted that it went through so quick in the end." Cllr Carey said the donation of extra land by neighbouring developer Pat Mooney was a "major factor in them being able to build a new school on the site".