Councillors told of positive progress on housing

Meath has taken the initiative on affordable housing and nine sites have been made available in Dunshaughlin and five more will be coming on stream in conjunction with the council schemes at Lagore, Dunshaughlin Director of Housing for Meath County Council, Barry Lynch told a meeting of the council.

In Ratoath 10 units had been provided at reduced cost and a further 10 will be made available in the next phase of the development, he said.

The council also had a separate agreement in Navan for 75 units.

One of the things holding up delivery was planning objections in relation to that particular case. They also had a “rolling call” for both social and affordable “turn keys”.They would be going through those to see what has come in so far. They were certainly working to get additional sites, land or houses in order to be able to deliver social and affordable housing. That was an ongoing process, he said.

The council was also looking for land in all municipal districts.

In reply to Fine Gael's Cllr Sharon Tolan he said that a development at Narroways, Bettystown was starting to move. The first phase at Alverno in Laytown refurbishment had finished recently and the second phase was now starting.

In reply to Social Democrat Cllr Ronan Moore on the question of retrofitting he said that as soon as any unit became available the council moved in to do whatever was needed, including energy retrofitting.

Cllr Paul McCabe had mentioned vacant units in Kells and Mr Lynch said the intention was to carry out an energy survey and any works then carried out as a result of that survey would be included.

On the question of planning enforcement, Labour Party Cllr Elaine McGinty said that in her own areas a number of hotels had been allowed to run down. She wanted to know what was to be done to move things along.

It wasn’t the council’s fault but there were people who were holding and hoarding buildings at a time of housing crisis. She said that it was hard to move things along when some of the owners were living abroad and were not even in the country.

Chief Executive Jackie Maguire said that in terms of compulsory purchase orders on vacant properties, the council could go through that process “but you need a big fat chequebook”. She said the Government was currently looking at a way of simplifying the processes.