‘Win a house’ Killeigh draw deferred to next December

A 'win a house' draw which was scheduled to take place next Monday as a fundraiser for a new community centre in Killeigh has been deferred for almost a year.

The €100-a-ticket draw was launched last June by the Killeigh Community Centre Development Association. The draw offers the prize of a three-bedroom house, valued at €355,000, in the Royal Oaks estate in Enfield.

In October, in a bid to widen the appeal of the draw, the voluntary organising committee adapted it to offer the option of €300,000 in cash as an alternative to the top prize.

The draw was due to be held on Monday next, January 3, but shortly before Christmas ticket holders were notified that the "difficult decision" had been taken to defer it to a new date of December 19, 2022.

"Unfortunately, as we haven't yet raised enough to cover the costs associated with the draw, we have made the difficult decision to defer the draw until December 19, 2022. This doesn't affect you as a ticket holder and all sold tickets remain valid," read the email to ticket holders.

One ticket holder told the Offaly Independent that she and her partner had both purchased tickets and were very disappointed that the draw was being put back by more than eleven months.

When contacted, the committee told this newspaper that the extension of the timeframe for the draw would offer the public more opportunities to win prizes, as a number of bonus draws for ticket holders would be taking place throughout 2022.

"We experienced some delays in getting the fundraiser up and running due to Covid, and we decided to extend the date to give everyone more opportunities to win cash and other prizes in numerous bonus draws during 2022," said the committee.

The house on offer in the draw is a newly-built, A-rated, semi-detached home within walking distance of the village of Enfield.

Planning for the draw began early in 2021 with the aim of helping to fund the construction of new community centre on the site of the old Macra Hall in Killeigh.

It's envisaged that the facility will be used for indoor sporting activities, meetings, conferences, drama, musical performances, and children's activities.

The committee said it remained hopeful that it would be in a position to break ground on the construction of the new community centre in 2022.