Coillte has decided to sell a dated lakeside holiday village and equestrian centre at Lough Oughter in Co Cavan which is likely to make more than €1 million through joint agents CBRE and Crotty Auctioneers.
Killykeen Holiday Village has 28 log cabins for guests, associated office/service facilities and a selection of leisure facilities. It is located on nearly 74 acres with 1.7km of shoreline to Lough Oughter and forms part of a larger 240-hectare forest park.
The complex, closed for a number of years, has been maintained in the interim by Coillte. It was built as a showcase for Irish timber in the 1980s by the Office of Public Works. Coillte took over responsibility for it in 1989 and it operated at a reasonable level of financial success until the foot-and-mouth outbreak in 2002 when the State forestry company closed access to all forest parks. The complex had depended on repeat business but the foot-and-mouth crisis meant that cycle was broken and the park did not recover.
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Tourism landscape
The holiday village was put on the market in 2006 and a sale was agreed at €4.75 million in 2007. However, this was never completed and Coillte took court action aimed at enforcing the sale. The facility was put back on the market again in 2009 at €3.5 million but failed to sell during the crash.
Holiday villages in forest parks are a growing part of the tourism landscape. Center Parcs, for example, is planning to spend €232 million on its first holiday village in Ireland at Ballymahon, Co Longford, which is due to open by 2019. The standard of facility, complete with swimming pools, shopping centre and tree houses, would be well ahead of that at Killykeen.
Coillte manages the Killykeen Forest Park which is designated as a special heritage area. Lough Oughter and its islands are spread over more than 8,900 hectares and form the southern part of the Lough Erne complex of lakes which is also connected with the Shannon.
Horse riding area
Killykeen Holiday Village is about 10km from Cavan town and 3.5km from Killeshandra. The setting contains a series of roads, walkways, multi-access paths, cycle trails, picnic and swimming areas. It offers good coarse fishing and game, with the main species being pike, bream, perch as well as mallard, tufted duck and pigeon.
The holiday village has a tennis court; an equestrian centre and horse riding area extending to 384sq m (4,133sq ft); a boathouse with six-berth marina; sports centre of 139sq m (1,496sq ft); an office building; a washroom/services building of 107sq m (1,152sq ft); facilities building of 151sq m (1,625sq ft); and pump station/sewage treatment facility.
Guest accommodation is in 20 Scandinavian-style chalets of 77 to 120sq m (829 to 1,292sq ft) with a mix of two- and three-bedroom units. There are also eight two-bedroom log cabins with 70sq m (753sq ft).
Robert Colleran of CBRE said the village would be popular with families, walkers, cyclists, anglers, hunters, bird watchers and horse riding enthusiasts.
