Tackling dereliction essential to dealing with housing crisis
OPINION
By Cllr Denis Leonard
As well as building thousands of new homes in a short space of time, an obvious answer to getting a large number of homes back into use in a shorter time span is tacking the dereliction issue.
This saves the extensive construction costs and time for new homes considering the shortage of trades people in the country at present. It also means so many of the disused buildings (eyesores) in towns and villages can be put back into constructive use.
Labour have launched a Dereliction and Vacancy Homes Campaign to tackle the issue and I feel strongly that Westmeath County Council and other councils should be given funding to return empty buildings in the midlands to use for people to live in.
There are so many buildings that could and should be brought into use by the local authority to improve housing supply and provide community facilities.
With focus and funding, we could help people in this region who are crying out for affordable, secure housing and decent community facilities.
There are massive discrepancies in vacancy figures. The Local Property Tax returns indicate 57,206 vacant properties; the Census estimates that the number is closer to 166,752, excluding 66,135 seasonal holiday homes.
CSO figures based on electricity usage suggest an even higher number of vacant properties.
How can we solve a problem when we don’t understand the scale of it?
That’s why Labour has launched a Vacant Property Campaign and I am urging people in the midlands to report vacant and derelict properties so we can present the data as evidence of the need to better fund Westmeath County Council and other local authorities to address this untapped supply of housing and to provide community facilities.
Local authorities are fundamental to bringing back vacant and derelict buildings back into use so they need to have robust powers and funding.
The Labour Party will soon bring forward a motion in the Seanad urging government to reform the compulsory purchase process in the forthcoming Planning Bill and fund local authorities across the country to tackle vacancy and dereliction.
The Labour Vacant Sites register is available at labour.ie/campaigns/vacanthomes/.