The Swinford Electoral Area is on par with its larger northern neighbour, Ballina, for the number of vacant newly built houses in estates, the elected members were told this week.
At the November meeting of the Swinford Electoral Area committee, Paul Benson, senior executive officer for Mayo County Council, outlined the facts from the recent Government survey into the unfinished developments. “This survey took into account 18 separate developments in the area that have been just completed and under construction,” he told the meeting. “It does not take into account any older estates that could have vacant houses. In the 18 developments surveyed there were 617 houses, 281 of them were completed and occupied, 82 were completed and vacant, 50 were at various stages of construction, and 204 of them had not started construction yet.”
Mr Benson went on to say that in one estate in Swinford there was 29 vacant houses and in Kilmovee there were eight vacant houses, and in a village like Kilmovee this was a very large overhang. He also told the elected members that the results for Swinford were on a par with the Ballina area but, unlike the Ballina area, there is not a town the size of Ballina to absorb the numbers.
Mr Benson also informed the meeting that there had been only four applications for the social housing leasing scheme in the Swinford area so far since it was advertised. There was one submission for a house in Foxford and three submissions for houses in Kilkelly. The social leasing scheme has come in for criticism from a number of councillors since it was announced, as it has been seen as a bail out for developers as local authorities will take on long term leases from private developers to house those on the housing lists, rather than construct their own housing projects to deal with the issue.
