New €2.9m. outdoor training centre to open in 2023

A NEW €2.9 million council-led outdoor training facility is due to open in Castlebar early next year.

Work is progressing on the new state of the art centre, which will be based at Saleen in the county town.

In a progress report at the monthly meeting of Mayo County Council, elected members were told the council are hoping to have the facility fully operational by quarter 1 of 2023.

The council's existing Regional Training Centre, at Aras an Chontae in the town, is in place for over 20 years and facilitates the training needs of staff in local authorities (Mayo, Galway, Roscommon, Longford, Leitrim County Councils and Galway City Council), group water schemes, utilities and numerous other public and private companies in the west and midlands, with Mayo County Council as the lead authority.

The new outdoor training facility will allow for the delivery of high-quality training in areas such as road openings and reinstatement.

Markets identified for it include local authority and other public sector staff, national utilities, group water scheme personnel and private sector contractors who will be able to avail of top quality, accredited, practical training.

The high levels of activity in delivering training at the existing training centre was also highlighted in the report.

Some 58 courses have been delivered through Castlebar Regional Training Centre for the month of May. This is a total of 492 courses to date with an income in excess of €700,000.

This is a 20% increase on 2019 (pre-Covid) income.

As most of the training is health and safety related, it is important that they have managed to clear the backlog resulting from Covid restrictions, the report added.