Skip to main content

Ghost Estate Dangers...

Problems at 'ghost estates' identified...

So-called “ghost” housing estates are posing serious health and environmental dangers through problems such as incomplete sewerage systems, water contamination, unfinished roads and open manholes, a study has found.


The issues have been identified in a pilot study in Co Laois, ordered by the Department of the Environment, on the likely effects of the sudden end to the building boom, particularly in rural areas.

The study, which assessed housing developments that were granted planning permission in the county in the last five years, found a quarter of them had health and safety problems.

It also emerged that local authority requirements for builders’ bonds are in many cases seriously inadequate.

The bonds are supposed to be taken out to ensure estates are completed. In some cases the requirements appear to have been ignored completely.

Minister of State with responsibility for planning CiarĂ¡n Cuffe said it was expected that most of the unfinished estates would end up in the hands of Nama. But he said local authorities would also be given the power in the new Planning and Development Bill to take over estates.

It is anticipated that the study will provide a useful base for Nama to assess the value of loans given out to speculative builders which are secured on such ghost estates.

But the findings have shown that in addition to financial consequences, there are also visual, environmental and pressing health implications.

Mr Cuffe said many people were facing significant difficulties because of incomplete facilities for new houses in rural villages and towns.

There were problems of estates where houses were partially built, but also where people were living in completed homes while neighbouring houses, roads and drainage systems remained unfinished, he said.

The Laois study raised public health and safety fears at one-quarter of sites surveyed. These included open sewers and manholes, water contamination and unsecured building sites, he said.

Almost one-third of housing developments recently completed in the county remain unoccupied. The study also found a significant 40 per cent of planning permissions for houses in Co Laois had not yet gone to construction.

Mr Cuffe said he was pushing for the full State-wide survey, which will include a county-by-county breakdown, to be published.

The Co Laois survey revealed a “maverick culture” in relation to the developers’ insurance bonds,where speculators simply ignored conditions and pressed ahead with their plans, according to a senior Government official.

While a lot of bonds were not paid at all, in other cases they were so minuscule that they are now deemed irrelevant given the scale of the clean-up operation.

“Even in some cases where there were conditions to pay bonds, a lot of them just went ahead and started developing without discharging any of the pre-commencement conditions,” he said.

The Department of the Environment believes there may be as many 620 ghost estates whose future remains uncertain. It will likely fall to Nama to decide whether to seek extensions to planning permission timescales, if they are to be completed.

In such circumstances, the new Planning Act will allow local authorities to set new bonds.

Otherwise, councils will be allowed to take charge of the estates and to complete unfinished roads and sewerage as well as demolish half-finished houses.


Report by TIM O'BRIEN - Irish Times

Popular posts from this blog

Property Crash Homes For Sale...

Hundreds of repossessed homes in Ireland to be sold by auction... UK property consultancy Allsop to hold auction in April at Dublin's Shelbourne hotel: Flats in Ireland that could have fetched €150,000 in the Celtic Tiger years are to be put on the market for as little as €25,000 (£21,000) in the country's first ever mass auction of repossessed homes. And, in a sign of how wide the property crash is, the latest item to turn up in liquidation sales in Dublin is a job lot of 15 cranes, including a pair towering over Anglo Irish Bank's half-built headquarters in the city's docklands. "Tower cranes were among the most sought-after heavy plant and machinery 10 years ago," Ricky Wilson of Wilsons Auctions says. "You couldn't buy them quick enough. Now they are left idle for two or three years on sites." He has 15 cranes worth €500,000 going on sale on 26 March, with German, Dutch and Polish buyers expressing interest. But it is the auction ...

Young, Irish And Out Of Here...

As the government continues to pump billions into our much discredited banking system, many Irish people unable to find work here are facing into a future outside of this country. John Downes, News Investigations Correspondent, spoke to some of the new Irish diaspora about their recent experiences of emigration... By any stretch of the imagination, they were a startling set of figures, prompting echoes of a past which we thought we had left behind. According to ESRI data released last week, we can expect net emigration of 60,000 in the year to this April – and a further 40,000 by April 2011. That's almost 1,000 of our best and brightest leaving every week. Yet the ESRI's predictions are simply the latest – if most stark – indications of a return to mass emigration among Ireland's unemployed, as the downturn has continued to take its toll. In September, for example, the Central Statistics Office revealed that Ireland witnessed a return to net emigration for the first time si...

More Allsop Fire Sales...

Allsop plans five fire sales a year... THE UK auction house Allsop and its Irish affiliate Space plans to hold up to five distressed property auctions a year following the success of its first auction last Friday when 81 out of 82 lots were sold for a total of €15 million. The next auction is scheduled for July 7th, when 200 lots will be auctioned, including apartments, tenanted shops, farms and houses. According to Space director Stephen McCarthy, his company is being inundated with requests from receivers, banks and individuals who want to sell their property fast. Many of the properties in Friday’s auction were sold by Bank of Scotland Ireland and it’s believe there is plenty more of this stock to sell. These include apartments in the Castleforbes development in the Dublin docklands, as well as units in Dublin 8 and in Castleknock. However, the agency is also considering taking on more agricultural land. One lot, a 55 acre farm in Co Wickow sold particularly well, making €42...