Council pushing on with two housing schemes for 64 houses in Ballymote and Carney

PLANS by Sligo County Council to build 39 houses in Ballymote and 25 social housing units in Carney moved a step closer this week.

Marian O’Callaghan, Senior Executive Architect for Sligo County Council (SCC) told members of the Council they were hoping to go to tender with the 39-house project in Ballymote in April and aimed to be “on site” in November of this year.

In Ballymote the construction of 39 new housing units is to take place and they will be named “Kilross - Cúil Rois” as agreed at the Ordinary Meeting of Sligo County Council on May 5, 2023.

There will be 16 one 1 bed apartments, 8 two bed apartments, 10 three bed dwellings, 4 four bed dwellings and 1 five bed dwelling and associated site development works including Public Open Space, site boundaries, drainage, utilities and services connections and car parking.

In Carney the plan is to construct 25 new housing units, to be named “Curraghmore – An Currach Mór”, made up of 10 one bed dwellings, 5 two bed dwellings, 8 three bed dwellings, 1 four bed dwelling and 1 five bed dwelling and associated site development works including Public Open Space, Village Green, site boundaries, drainage, utilities and services connections and car parking.

Responding to comments and questions from councillors at Monday’s meeting of SCC, Ms O’Callaghan agreed that there was “a huge demand” for one-bedroom homes.

She explained that the Ballymote project would be SCC’s first ‘design and build’ contract, a new framework for doing this work across the region.

Replying to Cllr Paul Taylor, Ms O’Callaghan confirmed SCC was taking their lead on using this system from Wicklow County Council who she said are the highest performing council in the country in terms of delivering housing.

“This [design and build] form of delivery is very much building on the experience of Wicklow County Council. What we are doing here is building up a regional framework which will work across the county, so it will serve ourselves, Leitrim, Donegal and Roscommon and we hope doing so will prompt more builders to come forward and explore modern methods of construction.”

Replying to Cllr Thomas Healy who noted a new trend for one-bedroom houses, he pointed out there would be 10 one-bedroom houses in Carney out of 25 in total while Ballymote 16 out of 39 houses are going to be one-bedroom homes.

“There seems to be a change in direction by people needing housing. A one-bedroom house is grand, but if you get old a two-bedroom house is better, it allows you, if you get old to have someone in the house to stay with you. A house is for life, I’m not criticising, just observing a trend which I don’t like,” Cllr Healy said.

Ms O’Callaghan said SCC has “a high demand for one-bedroom units”, and they needed to address this.

Cllr Marie Casserly said she had taken many calls from people looking to downsize their homes, adding that the demand for one-bedroom homes in north Sligo was huge adding “the sooner we get these houses built, the better”.

Cllr Rosaleen O’Grady reiterated the comments about huge demand for one-bedroom houses. She also felt that the new way being adopted would speed up delivery.

Cllr Sineád Maguire said she and all councillors were inundated with housing requests and issues while the last figures she had heard suggest up to 3,000 people in Sligo are looking for single bedroom accommodation.

Cllr Tom MacSharry echoed the “serious demand” for one bedroom accommodation.

By contrast, Cllr Michael Clarke was less enthusiastic about the provision of one-bedroom houses, although he qualified this saying he was “delighted” they were having a new outlook on the way we develop houses.

“My only concern is that the tender process will be onerous on the bidder. I know five developers interested in developing who are concerned that they would have a large take-up of their time in relation to the application and may not be successful. That may be a negative comment, but I do hope the application process is streamlined for those wishing to make an application.”

Ms O’Callaghan responding said, “we are tied into quite complex procurement processes. Because we are moving into a new form of construction, we really need to be sure that the people submitting to us actually have the capacity to deliver, so we do go through a quite rigorous scrutiny of all submissions. There is always a price element to a submission, but there is always a quality element too. With this new form of delivery, we have to be really sure that people have the quality to meet our needs and be confident they can deliver.

“I accept it is quite an undertaking for contractors to submit tenders, but the process is designed to ensure they will identify their price and when we decide who is the contractor, we can then go into negotiations on that. It’s a whole new stream of providing builders to deliver and it is a big undertaking for contractors.”

Having been to Wicklow and seen first-hand how contractors responded there, she said she was hoping to see the same “upskilling and development” within the construction industry in the north west. “We really need our builders to deliver in the same way they are delivering in Wicklow. It will be a learning curve.”