Developers & Local Authority Fail to Maintain Public Spaces & Services for 19,000 Houses

8th January 2006

There are 19,000 houses in Kildare housing estates alone that have not yet been taken in charge by their Local Authority. According to Deputy Catherine Murphy some housing estates in her constituency, and others around the country, have become classified by Local Authorities as ‘Abandoned’ as the developers responsible for their construction have fled without having completed work on public spaces and services such as roads, footpaths and landscaping. “This is not a new phenomenon, in fact there are housing estates I know of that are as much as 30 years old and still don’t have the security of being maintained by the Local Authority because they have not been adequately completed by their Developer. It’s disgraceful and simply must be tackled.” – Murphy.

Her comments came on foot of a response by Minister Roche to a Parliamentary question she tabled where she had called on Minister for the Environment, Dick Roche TD to ensure that the taking in charge of housing estates is made a priority among Local Authorities and has suggested this could be achieved by adding the issue to the existing 42 Local Government Performance Indicators. The Minister however, while assuring Deputy Murphy “that her proposal will be examined in the review of indicators at the appropriate time”, gave no indication that this issue was a priority for him and highlighted that no fundamental changes would be made to the Performance Indicators in the next two years.

“The performance indicators simply fail to recognise that peoples homes are of vital importance to them and when they purchase their home in a housing estate they rightly have an expectation it will be completed according to the terms of the planning permission” according to Murphy, who went on to state “this problem is causing a massive drain on the time and resources of Residents Associations who, instead of organising social events that lead to community building they are caught up with issues of estate maintenance and repairs, and constantly chasing the Local Authorities and Developers.”

When a Local Authority takes an estate in charge it is a strong indicator that everything is in order and responsibility transfers from the developer for the upkeep of roads, footpaths, sanitary services, in some counties the Local Authorities also assume responsibility for maintenance of green spaces. Murphy maintains that the level of consumer protection in relation to unfinished estates is totally inadequate and local authorities have not adequately pursued delinquent developers. “The performance indicators by and large deal with national issues, and I believe that this is a major national issue. Areas such as North Kildare, Meath, Fingal, South Dublin and Wicklow might be experiencing a more acute problem in this area because of their rapid and consistent development but there’s evidence to suggest it’s a more widespread problem. That’s why it has to be treated at national level” concluded Deputy Murphy.

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Posted by admin on January 8, 2006. Filed under Latest News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.