Cork County Council takes on 265 estates
Several of the estates in Cork county had previously been left in “a dire condition” by developers whose companies went bust during the recession.
Cork County Council signalled to councillors it had made “significant progress” in the “taking in charge” of a number of housing areas.
A report issued to councillors, at the request of Councillor Seamus McGrath, revealed the local authority took an additional 265 estates under its wing during 2014/2015. In the four years previous, it had taken in charge an average of 30-49 estates per year.
“I welcome the stepping up of activity in the past two years,” said Mr McGrath (FF).
“However, I do have a couple of issues where estates are not being taking in charge and, because of that, even simple things like trying to get a ‘children at play’ sign put up is quite challenging.”
The councillor said he was told of a case where a developer did not want to finish work to a standard which the council required, to take an estate over, and said, “That’s completely unacceptable.”
Councillor Ian Doyle (FF) said there were still many cases where people living in unfinished estates had been left in limbo because it was proving extremely hard to get the insurance bonds off financial institutions to complete the work.
Councillor Ger Keohane (Ind) echoed the sentiments, saying some financial institutions were offering totally unacceptable excuses for not releasing contractor bonds.
Councillor Kevin Murphy (FG) said he was aware of one contractor bond which would do only a fraction of the work, about one fifth, required to complete an unfinished estate.
Council chief executive Tim Lucey said around 90 estates were being viewed by the council this year for being possibly taken in charge.
He was confident at least 60 of them would be taken over by the council.
“We are putting continuous attention into this. We can only act where we have a request from the majority of those living in estates to take them over, or the developer requests us to do so,” said Mr Lucey.
He admitted that getting the insurance from contractors’ bonds from some financial institutions took time, but added the council would not be backing off on pursuing them.
Mr McGrath said informal discussions should take place between developers and council officials to see if more estates could be taken in charge.
