Location of mystery housing estate causes confusion

THE location of a housing estate due to be taken in charge by Wexford County Council (WCC) was the source of much confusion at this month’s meeting of Rosslare Municipal District.

The Greens is one of two estates in the district due to be taken in charge by WCC, however, neither council officials nor the councillors themselves were entirely sure of its location.

Fine Gael’s Jim Moore was the first to query its whereabouts.

‘Regarding the financial expenditure of these estates, we have €20,000 due in relation to The Greens, to accomodate five houses, and we’re spending €10,000 on South Bay to accommodate 50 houses,’ he began. ‘It would be helpful if the address was put on these documents, does anyone know where The Greens is?’

Councillors Ger Carthy and Frank Staples were similarly nonplussed, and Cllr Carthy mused it would be difficult to take the estate in charge if no-one knew where it was.

‘If the officials of WCC don’t know where it is then it shouldn’t be on our agenda here today. It should be withdrawn until we find out exactly where it is,’ he said.

In response, Senior Executive Officer, Tom Banville, said he was ‘ pretty sure’ it was in Rosslare Strand but he didn’t have the report in front of him.

‘Alright then, if you’re happy with that then we’ll go with it,’ was Cllr Carthy’s reply.

Meanwhile Cllr Moore wished to see the names of the developers on reports involving estates which the council had to take in charge.

‘I don’t see any reason why they wouldn’t be named,’ he said. ‘The response I got when I asked about this before was “well, people can look up the planning notice” but if you go back to 2001 for some of these planning numbers you’re not going to find them or find them very handily. Is there a technical or legal reason why we wouldn’t include name of developer on these applications?’

‘I don’t think so,’ replied Mr Banville. ‘The planning permission is always referenced on the report anyway so you can look it up. But I see no reason why we couldn’t include information such as who was the original developer of the estate.’