Ms Nollaig Whyte:

I will start with a description of Boyle. Many members might associate it with Lough Key Forest Park, which is outside the town. We are very lucky in the sense that it is renowned for outdoor adventure tourism and its historical assets. Lough Key Forest Park gets approximately 270,000 visitors each year. As one comes in towards Boyle Abbey, that number drops to around 20,000. In the heart of our project, which is just at the end of the picture on the screen, members can see that approximately 11,000 people visit King House.

We are probably in a different position from most of the other towns in the sense that we had already done the framework plan for the town through Boyle 2040.

That looked at the urban core of the town, where there was a serious level of vacancy. There was interaction with people in the town and the town team while reimagining the lands behind, as shown on the screen. We have been very lucky in getting funding through a number of schemes of the Department of Rural and Community Development, including funding under the rural regeneration and development fund, RRDF, to redevelop the old Royal Hotel site, which is a very obvious derelict site in the middle of town. We also have funding to develop a cycle corridor with a link to Lough Key.

We were very grateful to be announced as part of this scheme and at the time we also applied for the historic towns initiative. The first slide on the screen shows a very dull street and on the right side of the street there was a serious level of dereliction. On the opposite side, there are a number of shops and it is quite a vibrant side of the street. We used the historic towns initiative to work on the right side of the street and we can see a difference in the next picture, taken a number of months later after the historic towns funding kicked in. That funding was €140,000 and it was matched by both contributions from owners and Roscommon County Council. It gave us a great opportunity, probably more than would have been available if we did not have this scheme. We traced the owners and met them as a group. We did a condition survey of the front-facing facade, looking at the roof, chimney and the street face of each building. From there we identified what was achievable. Unfortunately, €140,000 for 19 properties could not cover the entirety of what was needed. Of the property owners, 17 from the 19 engaged with us and we ended up with 11 continuing with the scheme. They were asked for 30% of the funding available.

This has been a massive transformation and it is conservation-led architecture and regeneration. We can see how some of the original features were brought back to doorways that had been previously painted over. I got to know everybody on the street in the course of the project and there are only four residents on that side of the street. The youngest couple are in their 60s with children in college. All of the others live on their own. There is no sense of succession, even for the one family left with a home on that street. Many of the other premises are in probate. In one case we had a house with seven siblings and they did not get involved with the scheme initially because they could not agree on what they were going to do. It is difficult if the property is not left to one person. Others who bought a property as an investment are in negative equity. The costs of repairs are very high as this is an area of architectural significance. There is much work to be done so it is not like going into an ordinary house. We need to protect the existing structures and the street was set out at the same time King House was developed. We found that one person had bought a house but was not living in the area. His response was that he did not know where to start.

Ideally, we would like families to move here but some of the houses on the corner have no back gardens. Others have significant back gardens but there is encroachment from other properties. It is fortunate for anybody owning a house on the street to look over the Boyle river. On the far side of that is the new Royal Hotel site currently being developed under the RRDF, so it will give them dual aspect. We are working with a conservation architect to reimagine one of the houses where the person has the potential to invest. As Mr. Clifford mentioned earlier, we agree it is not the role of the county council to buy a number of these properties. We are developing a significant property at the Royal Hotel into an enterprise centre but it is not feasible to buy properties on the street. We are lucky as a private person is willing to put in the investment.

We cannot overstate how important the historic towns intiative's small level of funding has been in our engagement. It meant that people met us as we had something concrete. It built confidence in the broader town. We have had people from other towns in the county say they have looked at the work done on the Boyle's main street and it is influencing the work being done in Strokestown, for example. It will carry through in the town and village projects we are working on elsewhere.

The barriers include a lack of capital. Even 30% of what is a small sum of money was a challenge for some people. Property succession was also a problem, as I mentioned. Somebody mentioned earlier that properties are old, and that is also the case for us. Equally, we do not have young people or families living on that street. There are challenges arising with interior restructuring because of conservation aspects. A much bigger issue is the lack of jobs in the area. In order to get young people back in, we must get jobs of a certain level. There is a high level of graduate transfer from secondary school to third level in County Roscommon but a very poor retention rate when it comes to graduates getting a first job. It is the elephant in the room for many of these towns.

We need people to want to live in these locations so we must sell the potential of the time. I am thankful that the Boyle 2040 framework and the investment we have been successful in drawing down so far has started to create a sort of hipster cool image for Boyle town centre. People have started to buy on the streets adjacent to this site and two of the owners will put their properties for sale as a result of the work that has been done. We need to realise the potential of the lands behind the area. As we can see from the image on the screen, there is much potential for restaurants looking on to the river, especially when the far side of the river is developed into a very attractive public space. We need a joined-up approach with a tailored grant scheme to cover essential repairs. We were not able to repair the roofs under the historic towns initiative and these, along with the chimneys, are a major problem. People cannot do this on their own. Many of the people do not know each other so we must work with them even to facilitate the hiring of a cherry-picker once a year for essential maintenance. As others have stated, we must also come up with an affordable design that is fit for purpose when it comes to modern living.