Angry residents have forked out an eye-watering €67,000 in electricity costs to run the street lighting since 2008

Angry residents in Ashbourne who are paying thousands of euros per year for street lighting in their estate say they are being crippled by rising energy costs.

Residents in Churchfields have forked out an eye watering €67,000 in electricity costs to run the street lighting since 2008 and are calling for Meath County Council to take the estate in charge.

The development that boasts around 400 properties was built in two phases with phase one commencing in 2008.

After the original developers went into receivership, the estate was taken over by Nama and subsequently sold on to a new owner who flipped the asset coming into Cairn Homes control's in 2015.

At that point Cairn Homes took phase 1 of the development which was almost completed in its care and went on to build phase two.

Helen O'Connor is one of the directors of the Nealsbrook management company who manage phase 1 of the estate comprising of 121 units. She and two other residents came on to the board when they purchased one of the twelve apartments in the development in 2013 in a bid to address the estate's financial challenges.

"The streetlights were installed in 2008 and so far to date we have paid €67,000," she said. We are just ordinary people, we are a managed estate so we already pay for lots of stuff without adding street lights to our bill. Not only have we paid €67,000 in street lights we have also paid out €5,500 in repairs in the last two years. It's an absolute injustice.

"Last year the bill for was over €8,000 and this year is going to be higher.

"There are estates all around us and no other estate in the area, pay for street lights, in fact we are possibly the only estate in Meath paying for street lights.

"This year I will be paying €1,550 in management fees for my apartment. As I'm getting older this will be unsustainable fee to be paying out every year.

"The whole situation is very stressful."

Churchfields is also on a separate water supply to the town which needs regular maintenance and is tested to ensure the water is fit for consumption. Phase two of the development pays for this water service but phase one does not.

"We should be one estate and one company but Cairns told us that because our lease wasn't strong enough to impose water charges they had decided to separate the two phases of Churchfields," comments Helen.

Marie Byrne is another member of the board of management for Nealsbrook, Churchfields. She says residents have been asking to be connected to the main water supply for years.

"We have tried to get Meath County Council to take over the street lights but we are just banging our heads off a brick wall. I just don't know which way to turn.

"Everywhere we turn, our hands are tied. The cost of electricity is becoming unsustainable. I don't think that in this day and age a housing estate should be paying for street lighting, it is so unfair on residents."

Local Fine Gael councillor Alan Tobin says action needs to be taken immediately to alleviate residents of rocketing energy bills. He added:

"Parts of Churchfields were built around 2007/2008, other parts commenced in 2016, both phases are paying a large management fee that includes the maintenance of a private water supply and public lighting.

"Both phases residents have big mortgages and Cairn made a healthy profit from this project. It’s not fair during this cost of living crisis to expect hard pressed families, many with young children, to pay for two basic services that most Meath home owners do not pay.

"If Cairn cannot apply for the water connection immediately, I’m calling on them to reimburse residents now, pay for the water and electricity."

Irish Water and Cairn Homes have been contacted for comment.