Wicklow Sinn Féin candidates for the local elections in Arklow, Sheila Busher, and Warren O’Toole have called for the building of a custom Community centre for the town. There are no proper facilities for families or the community in the town.
The provision of a community centre has the potential to help empower youth in the area, strengthen local communities, and provide a venue for the type and variety of programmes and activities that enrich communities.
Sheila Busher said:
“As someone who has spent 15 years fighting for families, youth and the marginalised in our community, I am very aware of the importance and value which a community centre can contribute to a community.
The clue is in the name, a community centre provides a venue and a fulcrum for community activities.
I have also worked with the Arklow Positive Ageing Committee, and am fully aware of the isolation that older people experienced during the pandemic, and how difficult it has been to recover from that.
For both young and old alike a community centre provides a social hub, a place to embrace the vibrance of a community across the wide range of activities that take place there.
Both my party colleague Warren O’Toole and I will be pushing hard to ensure that Arklow secures a community centre that serves its needs.“
Warre O’Toole said:
“Both families and individuals have never been under more pressure. Our society has never been more isolated.
It has never been more important that facilities like a community centre are made available to members of the public in Arklow.
Community centres can provide venues for groups who cannot afford to secure other venues. It provides a site where members from different groups, ages, and socio-economic groups can meet and interact.
A community centre can contribute to the health and well being of an area, providing affordable and accessible entry to fitness and wellbeing programmes, which would otherwise be priced out of reach of ordinary people.
A community centre is essential to the well-being of a local community, and Sheila Busher and I will be pursuing a community centre for Arklow beyond the election. It must become a priority for Wicklow County Council to ensure funding is secured for Arklow to have a modern community centre in the town.”