Dear DSD members,
I am delighted to announce that our Club’s definitive home is now being built. From today, Tuesday 20th July 2021, a contractor is on the St Thomas Estate to start building the Multisport Campus we have been dreaming of for so long.
A quick history:
Between 2013 and 2015 DSD purchased 25 acres of the St Thomas Estate on the Tibradden Road.
Since 2015 we have been exploring with Dún Laoghaire Rathdown County Council (DLR) how to turn this site into a multisport campus that would include a full 400m track with an inner field dedicated to athletics and other facilities for minority sports.
In April 2019 we made a joint application with DLR to the Government’s Large Scale Sports Infrastructure Fund (LSSIF) and in January 2020 it was announced that our application was highly successful.
In July 2019 planning permission was granted for the whole multisport campus project.
In line with the conditions surrounding the LSSIF funding, we have phased the building project. Today Phase 1A begins: this involves all the enabling works to prepare for the track (utilities, drainage, footpaths, cycle paths, car park, foundations for the track, drainage for the athletics field).
Once these enabling works are completed, we envisage the commencement of Phase 1B (the finished track itself) and Phase 2 (our sports hall) with help from the LSSIF. DLR and DSD are in the final stages of the process with the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media to have the LSSIF monies secured.
We are confident that the track and field will be ready by summer 2022, and our plan is to have them available for use by our members while the sports hall (Phase 2) is being built. Trails through our beautiful property will also be developed at this time.
I am very proud of and grateful to my colleagues on the DSD Development Team for bringing us this far on our long journey, and I am delighted by the enthusiasm with which the DSD Board has made bold decisions along the route to keep the project moving.
Indeed, it has been a marathon of a project, and the finish line is well within our reach now. Once we complete this great project our prize will be an amazing top class athletics facility for our members, a home for other minority sports, and an amenity that the community can benefit from.
Yours in Sport
Declan Ryan,
Chair, DSD
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