by Sean Moriarty

Some Killarney locals will get the chance to try their hand at basketball - or even go to the gym outdoors - thanks to new Council plans.

A new basketball court and an outside gym is planned in a local housing estate after Kerry County Council agreed to lease a plot of land to Pinewood Residents Association.

The Council has agreed to lease a 926 square metre plot of land to the association so they can build outdoor facilities in their estate.

There was previously a basketball court in the estate and while the tarmac surface remains, the hoops are in a state of disrepair. This new move will, effectively, hand over the running of the courts to the local residents as opposed to a Council-run facility.

The project had already been granted Leader funding through the South Kerry Development Partnership (SKDP). A contractor has already been appointed and the only stumbling block was the transfer of the lands to the association.

That was completed at Monday’s full meeting of Kerry County Council.

“I made representations on their behalf through Leader,” Marie Moloney, Mayor of the Killarney Municipal District, told the Killarney Advertiser. “The tender process is done, the contractor is in place, this was the last piece of the jigsaw.”

The move has been welcomed by the Pinewood Residents Association.

“It is a second chance,” secretary Eileen Mayse told the Killarney Advertiser. “This would not have happened without Marie Moloney. It is going on six or seven years, she pushed it. There was always a basketball court here but it was just left there. A lot of the kids in the estate, they have their own kids now and there are grandchildren here too."