Laois County Council has appointed a design team for the €7 million Mountrath Town Centre Public Realm Improvement Scheme, as reported by Ireland Live, a step that matters to building and architecture professionals because it begins the design stage that precedes a Part 8 planning proposal. Consideration was reported by the Laois Nationalist as a €300,000 design contract, and the Leinster Express reported the overall project may cost around €7 million.

Laois County Council is the local authority and client, and the Laois Nationalist reported that the work covers a Town Spatial Strategy built through stakeholder consultation, a Town Centre Design and a Part 8 planning proposal for public consultation.

Ireland Live named Rory McGuire of Urban Agency Architects, an architecture firm with offices in Copenhagen, Dublin and Lyon, according to the firm’s LinkedIn page, and Andrew Archer of Systra, an infrastructure consulting and engineering firm, according to its Irish website, in its picture caption of the appointment.

Cllr Catherine Fitzgerald, cathaoirleach of Laois County Council, said when welcoming the appointment, as reported by the Laois Nationalist: “This scheme is a very welcome development as it is a significant step forward for the Mountrath community.”

The structural driver is town-centre vacancy, with the Leinster Express reporting that the tender documents aim to shift the town from vehicle dominance towards pedestrian priority and encourage reuse of derelict and vacant sites.

For the sector, the timing matters because the same report said the council plans to redesign the Church Street, Bridge Street and Shannon Street junction and remove the roundabout, and the Laois Nationalist reported that Angela McEvoy, director of services, said Mountrath’s population grew by 16.7 per cent between 2016 and 2022.

The scheme sits beside other Laois work, with the Leinster Express reporting a €7.5 million grant for Portlaoise’s Fort Protector and a contract at Borris-in-Ossory Courthouse awarded to Braemar Construction with Howley Hayes Cooney Architecture.

The broader implication for the sector is that a county running several regeneration schemes at once gives design teams and contractors a sustained pipeline across its towns.