Nestled close to the highest peak in the Slieve Bloom mountains, the village of Camross is in many ways a postcard example of rural simplicity. Long comprised of just the basic ingredients of Irish life – namely, a church, a school, a community centre and, of course a pub – even the local shop closed years ago, leaving the residents facing the prospect of languishing as another neglected region overlooked within County Laois.
But, from humble roots, the village has blossomed over the last six years thanks to the work of the Camross Parish Development Association (CPDA), who strived to secure funding from several agencies, including Laois Partnership Company (LPC), to increase amenities and change Camross into a beacon of can-do spirit.
Central to all this growth was the community development plan, which local representative Johanna McDonald describes as “the lynchpin” that allowed the CPDA to focus their energies on regeneration.
Johanna, a member of Camross Tidy Towns who has also been involved with other groups in drawing up the plan, credits the former parish priest, Fr John Lalor, as the catalyst behind the CPDA, due to his foresight in setting up a Fás scheme and approaching LPC to help develop the field adjacent to the old community centre and school.
“He bought this field, and the plan was to enhance facilities for the school, so he formed the CPDA, comprising representatives from all the community groups. That’s where everything started from,” explains Johanna.
LPC provided a grant for the group to formulate the community development plan, which Johanna says is responsible for everything they have achieved, with everyone involved in researching and identifying potential projects. Chief among these was the transformation of a two-storey hub building into a multipurpose space and a new courtyard for outdoor recreational space, with Johanna acknowledging that this would not have been possible without the LPC funding. Additional grant assistance in the form of biodiversity funding from LPC allowed the group to complete work on the park, including an orchard, landscaping and seating.
“We rebranded. The project was called The Field, like something out of ancient Ireland, but then the more we worked, we got other funding from Laois County Council, Pobal, and the Town and Village Renewal Scheme, anything that was out there. We were able to do that because we had this wonderful community development plan in our hands,” she says, adding that the plan is “still paying back” and was so robust when completed that Laois County Council used it to inform their county development plan.
With funding through the LPC LEADER Programme, the centre of the village was rebranded as the Fr John Lalor Community Complex, which includes a small gym and picturesque park featuring a tree nursery. Thanks to further grant aid from the council, the group was also able to build a looped walk around the river, while linking in with Inland Fisheries Ireland allowed them to develop an aquatic outdoor classroom. So pristine is the river that only last year it was recognised with a Blue Dot Award by the Local Authority Waters Programme and is classified as a high-status waterway. Camross Community Association, who evolved from the CPDA, has now taken over the running of the complex and will continue the regeneration process.
The latest initiative in Camross is the Lunch Club, a social food gathering featuring music, dancing and companionship, the aim of which is to bring people together and avoid isolation. Johanna explains that coffee mornings were originally taking place, before LPC’s Social Inclusion & Community Activation Programme (SICAP) approached the group with the Lunch Club idea. It was originally planned to host these events in the hub, but due to the numbers interested in attending it was necessary to use the larger community centre instead.
With so much achieved in Camross over the past few years, Johanna is passionate about encouraging others to make a difference in their area through the implementation of a community development plan.
“If you work hard on it and do a community development plan and you spend hours talking to people and spend hours and weeks building projects, you’ll get people to help you. You don’t get anything for nothing,” says Johanna.
If you have ideas on how to improve your local area, contact LPC today to see what assistance we can provide in helping you realise your goals. You can get in touch with us via email on [email protected] or call 05786 61900.
Read more about the Camross Lunch Club.
