Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy have today announced that 88 projects are to be allocated a total of €100 million under the Urban Regeneration and Development Fund (URDF), launched in July this year as part of Project Ireland 2040.
As a key part of Project Ireland 2040 - the Government’s National Planning Framework and National Development Plan - the fund will help to rejuvenate significant but underused areas in Ireland’s five cities and other large towns.
It’s one of four funds set up under the National Development Plan 2018-2027, and is being implemented by the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government. A total of €2 billion has been allocated to the URDF up to 2027, with €550 million available for between now and 2022.
The aim of the URDF is to stimulate new residential and commercial development in our larger cities and towns. These new developments will be supported by new services and amenities, and will help us to achieve the ‘compact growth’ that was set out in Project Ireland 2040.
Almost 200 applications were submitted to the Department since it launched its call for applications in July. There was a huge range of applications including: transforming the former school on Rutland Street within the North East Inner City as a community hub; support for large scale strategic sites on both sides of the river in the Cork Docklands Regeneration areas; Regeneration for O’Connell Street and projects in the city centre of Limerick; and public realm and riverside enhancement for the Abbey Quarter in Kilkenny.
Commenting on today’s announcement, An Taoiseach said:
The Urban Fund is aimed at all of our cities and towns with a population of more than 10,000. It’s an investment of €2bn over the next 10 years aimed at unlocking the potential undeveloped sites in our towns and cities. We want them to have vibrant centres and to grow up rather than out. “We want smart, compact, urban growth. We want to make sure we have more people living in our city centres and close to the centre of large towns, making it easier to walk to work, cutting commuting times and distances, making better use of existing infrastructure while also benefitting the environment. The scale of funding available under this fund means the successful projects will have a tangible and positive impact on the daily lives of people living in our large towns and cities. We have never planned our towns and cities in this way before. We’re announcing €100m in projects today and I look forward to seeing construction starting in the new year.
Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government, Eoghan Murphy said:
I’d like to extend my congratulations to successful applicants and wish to thank all those who submitted an application. I am hugely impressed by the enthusiasm and creativity demonstrated by all those involved throughout this process and am delighted to allocate €100 million in funding for 2019 to some very worthwhile projects. We will of course continue to work with those that wish to develop projects into the future and will enable a continual dialogue on this to ensure a pro-active delivery of sustainable projects. A key feature of this Fund is continued collaboration, whether between Government Agencies, local authorities, communities and other stakeholders. I wish successful applicants all the best with their proposals and I look forward to seeing the lasting impacts of these in the years to come.
A list of the successful applications are here.
Read the full press release here.
Click here for more detail on Project Ireland 2040.