THE HEALTH Minister has said an announcement on the beginning of work at the new Lisnaskea health centre will be made “within days.”
Two decades after it was first proposed, it had previously been announced work was to start on the long-awaited new centre, at the sight of the old high school in the town, in December last. When that deadline came and went, it was then announced in January work would begin this summer.
With no sign of any construction beginning, local Cllr Sheamus Greene, pictured right, wrote to Health Minister Mike Nesbitt last month asking when “shovels will be in the ground on the site.” He also asked if the delay was “incompetence by your Department, or is it a deliberate policy to delay this project?”
Now, Minister Nesbitt has said an announcement on the construction project is imminent.
“I hope to be in a position to make an announcement on the revised construction commencement date of the new Lisnaskea Health Centre in the coming days,” he wrote in a letter due to be delivered to the September meeting of the Council last night (Tuesday).
“The project is currently subject to revised budgetary and legal checks, but I am now assured all issues are on the cusp of positive resolution.
“I agree that construction cannot come a day too soon.”
Having first being proposed in the early 2000s, and with plans progressing in earnest since 2019, in November 2021 Permanent Secretary at the Department, Peter May, announced a business case had been approved for the much-needed new building, with a capital cost of £18.5 million.
That cost later increased to £31.8 million, due to adverse site conditions, general construction price inflation, and new statutory requirements relating to building regulations, ventilation and sewerage systems.
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