The long running issue of the take-over of estates by Castlebar Town Council was kept squarely to the front of the agenda at the May meeting of the local authority this week. The debate was kicked off by Cllr Eugene McCormack who brought up the issue with regard to Knockaphunta. “This issue has been dragging on for a long time and the residents want to know what’s happening.” Cllr Blackie Gavin added: “There was an issue very recently with the pumping station and a tanker had to be brought in to deal with the sewerage issue it created.” Cllr Noreen Heston said that a similar issue had happened around Christmas time with sewerage and that the people who live there are anxious for something to be done in relation to it.
Assistant town engineer Brid Dawson replied that the council have been in detailed conversation with the developer in relation to Knockaphunta and all his estates in the town and he is preparing the documentation for them all.
Cllr Michael Kilcoyne hit out at the length of time that had gone by since the council wrote to developers and the fact that very few of them had replied to the council. “There are a number of developers who were written to in February 2010 by the council and nothing has been done since, no reply from the developers or follow-ups. This council promised that things would be done, but we’re well over a year now and things aren’t happening.”
Cllr Frank Durcan added: “If we lived in an ideal world all these things would have been done by the developer but we don’t. We have developers who walk away and leave other people with the job and the responsibility to clean it up. Some developers just did what they wanted, while others did what they were supposed to. The problem we have is that when the system doesn’t work as it should, we have to fall back on the ratepayer. But we can’t do that because the cost would be astronomical, if we ended up on that road it would cost millions.”
Cllr Harry Barrett asked would there be a possibility of using derelict site legislation as a tool to get the developers to finish off their estates. Town manager Seamus Granahan replied: “I do agree with the members that it has been going on a long time. We have a list of about 30 estates to take over and it is a long process, we have taken over quite a number of them in the recent past, more than most other local authorities I would think, even. But we have been working with developers to try and get things sorted at no cost to the council. There is legislation there for residents to have a plebiscite to get the council to take over the estate, but then the council are left footing the bill for it. There is also a mechanism for future planning permissions to be refused to developers if they don’t comply with their planning permission, but that is also fraught because a change in the company name of the developer could see us not being able to enforce that.”
Cllr Michael Kilcoyne proposed that the council write to all the developers in question and give them a time frame to apply to have their estates taken over or the council would consider legal steps. Cllr McCormack suggested that the letter should read that a time frame be given to developers to comply with their planning permission rather than apply for the estates to be taken over, as Mr Granahan pointed out to the meeting there is no legal requirement for a developer to have the estate taken over.
