Rural Mayo hotel being transformed into evacuee centre

Pontoon Bridge Hotel, once a jewel in the Mayo hospitality landscape, is about to be used to house Ukrainian evacuees.

The 58-bedroom facility, on the shores of Lough Conn, is currently being renovated and refurbished prior to the influx of several hundred Ukrainian people. They are expected to be in situ within the next month or so, The Connaught Telegraph can confirm.

Pontoon Bridge Hotel and surrounding lands was purchased by the Vesada Group in 2017 for a price tag in the region of €464,000.

Operated successfully by the Geary family since 1964, the enterprise was dealt a body blow by the economic downturn of the late 2000s and was placed in receivership in 2011.

Given its rural location, equidistant between Castlebar and Ballina, and a lack of public transport and local retail infrastructure such as shops, Pontoon can be regarded as a less than ideal location to house a large number of refugees.

Due to the obvious drawbacks, observers suggest that the use of Pontoon Bridge may be a temporary rather than long-term measure.

The amount of accommodation capacity in Co. Mayo taken up by the need to shelter growing numbers of refugees/asylum seekers continues to increase month by month.

A number of other hotels in the county have been transformed into accommodation centres in recent months.