THE OWNER OF the Castletown Estate 235 acre landholding has said that he has offered to reopen talks with the Office of Public Works (OPW) on a potential sale of the land to the state body, but that he has had no reply to a solicitor’s letter on the matter.

Lar McKenna, who is a property developer local to North Kildare, is the director of Killross Properties Limited, which purchased the private section of Castletown Estate in Celbridge in March of this year, jointly with Springwood Limited. 

Speaking to The Journal, McKenna said that the current owners did not “with the intention of selling it back to the OPW”, but that they went into talks about resolving the M4 entrance and car park access issue with “an open mind”.

“We are not currently in talks with the OPW about the Estate. Our solicitor wrote to the OPW on 10 October offering to reopen talks and agree a market value for the landholding, and we have had no reply from them,” McKenna added. 

The OPW has disputed McKenna’s timeline of events, and said that it sent a detailed letter to the landowners “last Thursday”. 

McKenna said that the owners have “made it clear to the OPW that we will only deal with them through our solicitor from here on”.

It has not clarified whether this letter was a direct reply to the solicitor’s letter. 

[Update 31 October. 5.30pm]: In a subsequent response to The Journal following the publication of this article, the OPW said a letter was issued to the solicitors acting for the owners on foot of their letter of the 10 October.

“This was issued by our legal representatives within days of its receipt,” the spokesperson said. They also confirmed that two additional letters were issued directly to the owner on the 19th and 27th October.

The OPW, which failed to outbid the current owners for the land when it came on sale earlier this year, has always stated that its “ultimate aim” is to see the private and public sections of the Castletown Estate “reunited”. 

McKenna announced the closure of the M4 entrance of his Estate to the public at the end of September, which he said he had to do for insurance reasons after talks on a licence agreement with the OPW fell through. 

The OPW said that in June of this year, the new landowners provided it with a draft licence agreement. 

“While the OPW was prepared to accept a sharp increase in the licence fee from €24,000 a year to €103,000, the landowners required that lighting be installed and would not accept the State Claims Agency indemnity and requested private insurance. As the State is its own insurer, this was a condition which the OPW can not fulfil,” an OPW spokesperson said. 

On the lighting issue, the OPW said it offered “to only operate the car park during daylight but this was refused, with a significant investment in permanent lighting facilities demanded and requiring the OPW to apply for planning permission, but only a short-term licence of less than one year was available with no assurances it would be renewed”. 

The OPW said this would not be a “good use” of State funds. 

Since September, a group of 400 Celbridge locals have been manning a 24 hour protest at both the M4 entrance gates, and the front entrance of the estate. 

The entire affair has caused a major headache to the OPW, as it has accused protestors of behaviour bordering on the intimidation and harassment of staff, who on a few occasions have been blocked from driving up the pathway to the main house, though no one has been blocked from accessing the pathway on foot. 

“Intimidation of staff trying to get to work is desperately regrettable and we need to see common sense prevail,” Mr O’Donovan said in a statement this week, calling on protesters to let all workers use the pathway via car, after they agreed to allow essential workers to do so. 

The OPW ended the 2023 season for Castletown House early due to the ongoing dispute. 

Protestors have denied behaving in this way, and have stated that their intention is to see full public access restored. They have also raised concerns about what potential developments could take place on the privately owned section of the land, which has open space and amenity zoning. 

McKenna said that he has not witnessed any harassment or intimidation taking place. 

The solicitor’s letter that was sent to the OPW on 10 October informed the state body that the current owners of the Castletown lands were prepared to “re-open dialogue” providing that certain terms were fulfilled. 

The current owners proposed that both they and the OPW would engage separate independent commercial land agents to evaluate the “potential sale” of the landholding to the OPW “based on the current market value having regard to the zoning of the land and relevant comparable sales”. 

The current owners further proposed that both parties could exchange appraisal reports within a four-week timeframe, and then agents could meet to make an agreement on the current market value of the landholding. 

The OPW made a plea to protestors this week that staff be allowed to access parking facilities that are next to the main house (which is different to the car park beside the M4 entrance, which is owned by McKenna). 

It has said that staff, beyond just essential services, need access to parking facilities to carry out maintenance works to the publicly owned section of the Estate once the 2023 season has come to an end, which is happening a week early this year due to the ongoing protests.