Potential New Owner Of Moyvalley Hotel & Golf Resort Meets With Locals To Address Concerns

Another protest took place on Saturday

The potential new owner of the Moyvalley Hotel and Golf Resort, Mr. Karl Sandhu, recently met with concerned locals in the wider Moyvalley and Broadford area to address some of their concerns, which centre around the future use of apartments adjacent to the hotel.

Mr. Sandhu, a multi-millionaire and CEO of the Citicorp Group is in discussions with the current owners over potentially purchasing the estate, but no formal sale has been completed.

Mr. Sandhu applied to Kildare County Council in October for a planning exemption to change the use of 32 apartments on the premises to be used to house international protection applicants.

Kildare County Council confirmed to Mr. Sandhu on the 19th of December 2024 that the re-purposing of the apartments would be considered an exempted development and a planning exemption would apply.

Mr. Sandhu has confirmed to Kfm that it is his intention to accommodate International Protection Applicants in the block of apartments on the premises. 

He told Kfm that discussions are ongoing between his company and the Department of Integration to accommodate families, but no agreement has been reached as of yet. 

Mr. Sandhu says he has no intention of changing the use of the Hotel itself, which will continue to offer its current services, including overnight stays and weddings. 

Kfm understands that Mr. Sandhu has been actively engaging with locals and held a meeting with them last week to address their concerns and plans on meeting them again this week. 

One of the main concerns that locals have is that tenants, who are currently living in the apartments, have been served with notices of termination and have been asked to leave. 

There had been some confusion as to who actually issued those notices, but a statement from the current owners of Moyvalley Hotel and Golf Resort clarified the situation. 

The statement, issued exclusively to Kfm's 'Kildare Today' programme, has confirmed that the current owners served notices of termination to the tenants of the apartments and not Mr. Sandhu. The statement also stated that no sale of the property has been finalised. 

The statement issued:

"The current owners of Moyvalley Hotel and Golf Resort can confirm that they are engaged in the sale of the estate and property to Mr. Karl Sandhu of Citicorp Group.

Furthermore, we can confirm that no sale of the property has been finalised. The sale process is currently ongoing and due diligence is being carried out.

To dispel public rumour, we can confirm that Mr. Sandhu, Citicorp group and any other associated companies have not evicted any tenants whatsoever as they have no legal authority to do so.

All notices that have been served have been done so to comply with regulatory requirements upon advice to ensure the company is compliant with its legal obligations.

Accordingly, we have served notice of termination to the tenants of the apartments."

A peaceful protest has been held outside the Hotel for the last two Saturdays. 

Speaking on this morning's Kildare Today programme, Larry Malone, a local resident and one of the organisers of the protests, said the eviction notices have impacted a number of families. 

"There are six people in the apartments that are fighting their evictions. An Indian couple came out to us on Saturday at the protest and told us they're living in their apartment for four years." Mr. Malone said.

"They are working local, they can't rent anywhere else local and anything they do see [available properties] is a minimum €300 extra a week compared to what they are paying now at the moment." he continued. 

Mr. Malone concluded by saying "it's very unfair on these people being evicted and we believe they are being evicted to accommodate an IPAS centre".

Kfm recently spoke to another man that had been served a notice of termination.

You can read that article in full here.