Council halts Traveller house plan in Barntown

WEXFORD County Council has abandoned a proposal to build three bungalows for an extended Traveller family on a large site in Barntown and will construct six to eight houses at the location instead.

The move came after the Council met again with members of the family and ascertained that their needs had changed in the lengthy period of time that had elapsed since they were first assessed, and their housing requirement was now more urgent.

The proposal to build a three-bungalow complex to house three units of the extended Traveller family on a site at Ballyhine was rejected by members of Wexford Borough District Council at their April meetin.

It went to a full County Council meeting in May - where a majority of members could have voted to allow it to go ahead regardless of the views of Wexford District councillors.

However, the County Council decided to send it back to the Wexford District to see if local councillors could find a solution.

The mayor of Wexford Cllr. Jim Moore reported that intense discussions had taken place in an attempt to come up with an alternative.

The Council’s Head of Housing Padraig O’Gorman said a considerable length of time had elapsed since the original meetings with the Traveller families concerned, when their needs were first assessed. This was due to the nature of the process that had to be gone through.

It was decided to contact the family again to see if the Barntown proposal still met their needs and it was discovered that their situation had changed and their housing needs had become more urgent.

Acting on the updated information, the Housing Department came up with a different solution and it was now proposed to house two of the three families from the Council’s housing stock in Wexford town where two houses had become available, according to Mr. O’ Gorman.

In reply to a question from Cllr. David Hynes, Mr. O’ Gorman did not give the location of the two houses but said the two families were not being housed beside each other. He estimated that the two houses were up to two miles apart.

Cllr. Tony Dempsey who was opposed to the Barntown proposal, welcomed the fact that a solution had been found, saying it was good that the families were not being housed on top of one another in Barntown.

Mr. O’Gorman thanked the Mayor for his role in helping a find a solution.

The Department of the Environment had previously approved funding for the building of three bungalows in Barntown on ‘Traveller specific’ sites which are larger than usual.

Mr. O’Gorman said the local authority will now seek approval from the Department for the building of other houses on the site. He reckoned that six to eight houses will now be planned for the site instead of the three bungalows.

The proposal was unanimously supported by the District Council.