Mid Ulster councillors hear of visionary ’15 minutes’ concept for rural living

Should the group’s vision be fulfilled to the full extent of their ambition, the ’15 minutes’ concept will be the first of its kind to be delivered in a rural location, anywhere in Ireland.

Torrent Valley Initiative representatives, Paddy McKenna and John O’Neill outlined their thinking in the course of a presentation, at a Development committee meeting of Mid Ulster District Council.

John O’Neill told committee members: “We’re here to give you a high-level introduction to a vision that we propose to deliver over the next four or five years.

“What we’re looking at is what we’re calling an independent living community.

“You hear a lot about it in urban communities, where 15 minutes from where you live in that urban settlement you can access whatever services you want, from birth right through to end of life.

“As we know, this is a rural district council area and by and large, if you’re rural, you have less access to services, so what we want to try and do for the first time on this island is to take that 15-minute city model, and apply it to a rural settlement.

“It’s supporting and empowering our citizens. If you choose to live in that broad area in and around Donaghmore, whatever you want to do, from a recreational point of view, from an early intervention child development perspective, from an education perspective, from a cultural perspective, from an enterprise perspective, you can do it there.

“We think we have a fairly strong track record around community-led development on many different things.

“Over the last number of years we’ve delivered the Torrent Valley Business Park phases one and two, we’ve established social enterprises, so there are a lot of different things going on there.

“We’ve been in a position to acquire 14 acres of development ground, and what we want to do is to master plan that and deliver five separate but interrelated facilities which contribute to this vision for the 15-minute community.

“That site’s connected to the village, it’s adjacent to two of the local schools and to the Torrent Valley Business Park, and we see these as sustainable facilities.

“Anything that we’ve delivered at the moment, they’re all underpinned by a strong social enterprise model, they’ll be innovative, we want to try and do things that largely haven’t been done before, certainly in this part of the world.

“We’re looking at a rural healthy living centre, an extension of the business park, a housing development with what we call independent living units for people that are older, for adults with learning disability.

“[We also have plans for] an enhancement of the Bardic Theatre and a social farm for adults with learning disability.

“In terms of the [healthy living centre], this in many ways is almost an extension of workspace, but with a very very clear focus on rural health and wellbeing.

“We see that as something that will accommodate perhaps a crèche, an additional childcare provision – we have a very good playgroup, but no early years and very little after-school.

“We talked about four or five years ago with the Southern HSC Trust about trying to [provide] some model of GP provision in the village. There’s an expanding population there.

“The current GP provision model is failing dramatically, so we want to work to try and develop something that’s innovative.

“From a business perspective, anything from your podiatrist to your dentist, your counsellors, your physios and so on, we would see that building as a hub for all of that, so that would be a one-point access for anything to do with health and wellbeing.

“Our workspace project has always been very successful and has been fully let now for the last 22 years.

“We want to look at another phase that includes units in and around hot-desking and co-working.

“About 10 years ago we went on a study visit to Dundalk Institute of Technology, and they have been leading the way around the design of housing, particularly for older people.

“That was 10 years ago. You can imagine where that’s moved on. That, combined with Med Tech, we just think there’s an opportunity to have the first of this type of settlement within this council area.

“We’ve got planning permission for 40 houses in total, but we want to see a percentage of those for older adults with a disability.”

Another core project, Mr O’Neill explained, will see facilities enhanced at the Bardic Theatre, through a renovation plan that will include additional seating capacity, dedicated rehearsal space, and a refurbished reception/bar area.

The Torrent Valley Initiative representative went on to mention the group’s plans for a social farm: “[We want] to provide meaningful employment and training opportunities, and we see the possibility of including that on that site with a social farm.

“That social farm would have the ability to grow produce that goes into the cafés and the restaurants, and so on. So you can see how all of those link together.

“There’s a significant journey ahead but we’ve got the capability, the leadership and the willingness within the village to do this.

“We’re more than willing to do the donkey work on the ground, but council support we think is central to this.

“We’re not coming here tonight to say we need money, but we can work together through your influence to maybe unlock technical support.

“Help us to bring others to the table to truly deliver this as the first of its kind in rural Ireland, North or South. That’s where we want to go.”