An attempt to stop the county council taking charge of housing estates where residents had complained about burst pipes during the recent cold weather failed this week, when it was pointed out that evidence of cowboy pipe layers did not match the anecdotes, and that there were also legal impediments.
Cllr Colm Arthur had tabled the motion in an effort to ensure Westmeath County Council would not be stuck with the reinstatement costs left behind by errant contractors who didn’t lay the water pipes to the depth as demanded by the planning conditions.
He was given plenty of cross-floor support from Cllrs Aidan Davitt and Ken Glynn, the former of whom suggested his phone was “rung red” by the residents of Lakepoint, the biggest housing estate in Leinster outside Dublin, with complaints about frozen pipes. All three had been bolstered by the revelation at last month’s council meeting that enforcement notices had been issued by the council to a number of developers in recent months in an effort to impel compliance with the planning conditions to which they had signed up.
As he had explained at last month’s meeting, Pat Keating from the housing department conceded there was a problem with some developers, but that: “It doesn’t seem to be as significant a problem in other counties as it is in Westmeath, as none of our neighbouring counties have sent out enforcement notices”.
“We wouldn’t be able to enforce a developer to carry out work on private property, but there should be a contractual indemnity signed by the mortgage holder of the property which should cover any further work undertaken before an estate is taken in charge,” he told Cllr Arthur.
Cllr Mark Cooney, a lawyer by trade, suggested Westmeath County Council attempt a test case against a developer, and Cllr Arthur said he knew of an estate where “a test case would be a slam dunk”.
Mr Keating again cautioned against this, saying that “some developers no longer exist”, and that if the council refused to take an estate in charge because of a poorly laid pipe, it would have also have to do so for all residual mistakes left behind by developers.
He also confirmed that “any estate in Westmeath that had frozen pipes last year had their stopcock depths checked”, and of the 60 complaints received last January, just eight estates had to have their stopcocks lowered to the proper depth under ground.
“We’ve only had two complaints in the first cold snap [earlier this month] after the work done last year,” he told The Advertiser.
