LIMERICK City and County Council does not have the required resources to advance the development of over 20 different sites currently owned by the local authority.
That’s the view of Labour Party councillor Joe Leddin, a member of the Housing Strategic Policy Committee, who recently requested a list of all sites suitable for housing development.
“When provided with the list of sites in the core city area including the number of potential housing units per site over 260 additional houses could be built. Several of these sites are well located in the city such as the former Guinness site on Carey’s Road, Glasgow Park and Mary Street,” Cllr Leddin explained.
“However, what is lacking is the necessary professional personnel such as architects to design suitable schemes so that we can go to tender and get builders on site doing what they do best,” he claimed
Cllr Leddin feels that at a time of huge pressure on housing waiting lists, council owned sites should not remain idle any longer. He now intends to ask Housing Minister Simon Coveney to facilitate the recruitment of additional staff to enable these sites to be developed when he visits Limerick at the end of this month.
“While new construction projects are underway this is mainly occurring in regeneration areas such as Moyross or Southill. As a council, we must become more imaginative and creative in terms of utilising existing sites for the benefit of those people and families looking for social housing support.
“Clearly defined targets must be set for all these sites so that we can considerably increase the number of social houses being built, thus delivering much need work to trades people while simultaneously removing possible derelict eyesores from local communities,” he said.
According to a spokesman for Limerick City and County Council, based on the previous Social Housing Strategy 2020, the local authority sought and obtained approval for, and recruited, a number of additional staff to implement its local construction plans.
“The local authority is reviewing its recruitment programme based on the recently announced Rebuilding Ireland document but is satisfied that it has the required qualified staff to deliver on its existing commitments,” he explained.
by Alan Jacques
