In the first six months of 2011 there were 459 new residential and commercial buildings identified in Galway, according to figures released by GeoDirectory.
This represents a year-on-year decrease of 14 per cent compared to the same period in 2010 when 534 new buildings were recorded in the county. GeoDirectory, jointly established by An Post and Ordnance Survey Ireland (OSi ), manages Ireland’s only complete database of residential and commercial buildings. The figures were recorded by 5,600 An Post delivery staff working with experts from OSi.
Across the country, GeoDirectory recorded 7,330 new buildings, composed of 6,221 residential buildings, 932 commercial buildings, and 177 dual purpose buildings with both residential and commercial components. The new additions in 2011 bring the total number of buildings in the Republic of Ireland to 1,883,474.
Of the 459 new buildings identified in Galway, 415 were residential buildings, 38 were commercial buildings, and six were dual-purpose buildings with both residential and commercial elements. These new additions bring the total number of buildings in Galway to 108,696. The decrease in new building additions in Galway of 14 per cent in the first six months of 2011 is in line with the 10 per cent drop recorded nationally.
Commenting on the new figures, GeoDirectory CEO, Dara Keogh said: “There has been a downward trend in building activity in recent years following a peak in the first half of 2007 when 60,781 new buildings were added to the GeoDirectory database. Since then, the number of additions to the database each year has fallen to 7,330 in the first half of 2011. That’s a drop of 88 per cent over the last four years. However, the rate of decline has reduced significantly to just 10 per cent this year and increases in new builds have in fact been recorded in 11 counties in the first half of 2011.”
