{"id":541573,"date":"2026-07-09T20:23:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-09T20:23:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/541573\/"},"modified":"2026-07-09T20:23:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-09T20:23:09","slug":"cork-club-sells-carrigaline-pitch-to-county-council-for-e2-5m","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/541573\/","title":{"rendered":"Cork club sells Carrigaline pitch to county council for \u20ac2.5m"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.irishexaminer.com\/maintopics\/cork-county-council_topic-5329616.html\">Cork County Council<\/a> is the new owner of Avondale Park, the former home ground of Avondale United Football Club, in a deal valued at \u20ac2.5m.<\/p>\n<p>The 4.62-acre (1.9ha) site, in an area with favourable zoning for housing, could accommodate up to 70 homes \u2014 depending on housing styles \u2014 based on current guidelines governing density range in sustainable residential neighbourhoods.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">The closure of the deal has released funds to the club to press ahead with the development of alternate lands on the Carrigrohane \u201cstraight\u201d road closer to Cork City, leased from Cork City Council for a peppercorn rent.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">The club lodged a planning application in May to develop a new sporting infrastructure at the Carrigrohane site, to include one full-size artificial pitch with ancillary training areas; one full-size natural grass pitch, and floodlighting for both pitches and training areas, as well as upgrades to an existing car park.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">Avondale Utd FC, in the top four clubs in Cork in terms of membership \u2014 about 1,100 members, including 700 school players under 16, whose home games are played in Beaumont Park, in Beaumont, Cork City, where Avondale Utd has a 99-year lease \u2014 had played in Carrigaline since 1986.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">The decision to relocate after 40 years was in the hope of \u201coptimising the value of the lands for the club\u201d and to \u201crealise the full development potential of the site in what is currently a buoyant housing market\u201d.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/5150081_6_articleinlinemobile_USE_1_.jpg\" alt=\"Avondale Lands, Carrigaline\" title=\"Avondale Lands, Carrigaline\" class=\"card-img\"\/>Avondale Lands, Carrigaline<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">Monies raised through the sale will now fund the development of new facilities for its growing membership.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">The sale was overseen by David McCarthy of Knight Frank who had highlighted its proximity to the new, unfolding motorway as positively positioning the lands for strategic development.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">He said at the time that as Carrigaline was now the largest town in Cork county, the strong demand for new homes in the area represented \u201can ideal opportunity to create a bespoke residential development subject to obtaining planning permission\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">That task now falls to Cork County Council and can be done by way of a Part 8 procedure, where elected members vote on whether to approve the development, following public consultation and a report by the chief executive.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">Carrigaline is just 12km south of Cork City and is a substantial commuter town. The Carrigaline pitch is within walking distance of Carrigaline town centre.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cork County Council is the new owner of Avondale Park, the former home ground of Avondale United Football&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":541574,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,79,63,61,60],"class_list":["post-541573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-cork-news","tag-cork-county-council","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=541573"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541573\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/541574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=541573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=541573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=541573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}