This article is from page 17 of the 2013-01-01 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 17 JPG
CLARE County Council revealed that they would examine eight unfinished housing estates in the county in April where they believe that safety and security has become a serious issue.
The local authority has also con firmed that it believes that half of the county’s Category 4 ‘ghost’ estates should no longer fall into this category, which is the worst category of estates.
According to the local authority, only three of the six housing developments that have been classified by the Department of the Environment as unfinished and developer-abandoned, or Category 4 estates, should still be in the category.
The council say that they intend to contact the Department of the Environment and inform them of their opinion on this.
Speaking at last night’s meeting of Clare County Council, Director of Services, Ger Dollard said that the local authority is deploying “quite a lot of resources” to the issue of the Category 4 developments and said that safety was the responsibility of the developer.
He was responding to a joint motion put forward by Cllr John Crowe (FG) and Cllr Paul Murphy (FG) which asked for details on the condition of so-called ghost estates in the county.
“It is the responsibiity of the property owner, the developer or the receivers to ensure that the site is secure and safe,” said a council spokesperson.
“The council has written to developers and receivers with housing developments on the unfinished list, explaining to them their responsibilities in relation to the safety of the site.”
Speaking on last night’s motion, Cllr John Crowe said that some Clare estates were in a “very, very bad condition”.
“There are estates which are not even one-quarter finished and no place for children to play in. There are open drains and other dangers,” he said.