HyperSmash.c om

Friday 8 June 2012

Ghost Estates

Half built houses on Dromin Road
The economy of Nenagh expanded rapidly during the decade from 1998 to 2008, this period saw a big increase in construction activity with numerous building sites around the town. Developers purchased land in newly zoned areas, often at triple its pre-Celtic Tiger value.

Today construction activity is frozen, with most of the construction firms in liquidation. Some of these estates have up to 50% of houses unoccupied and other estates are hoarded off due to their state of completeness and health and safety reasons.

Examples of estates built during the Celtic Tiger years include Castleoak - Dark Road, Drummin Village - Borrisokane Road, Woodview Close and Coille Bheithe - Conlan’s Road, Droim an Oir - Dromin Road and Springfort Meadows on the Limerick Road. This is just a sample from a small rural twon like Nenagh.

Nationwide there are approximately 2,800 ghost estates according to a survey by the Department of the Environment. The survey showed that from May to September 2012, there were 120,000 homes in ghost estates. The homes fully completed and occupied was 77,000, the homes completed but empty was 33,000 and a further 10,000 homes were in the early stages of construction.

In cities such as Dublin or Galway the problem of unoccupied homes is not as acute as in rural town. With demographic statistic from the recent 2011 census showing that more and more people are moving to the cities, then in a relatively short few years supply will meet demand here. This is not the case for a town like Nenagh where this period could be many decades.

2 comments:

  1. interesting article, that's a huge amount of "ghost estates" and empty houses. are there squatters in these living spaces?

    and cool photo; did you take it?

    ReplyDelete
  2. I took it across the road from my house! No squatters in these places but give it a few years, I am such that some people will try to aquire houses this way.

    ReplyDelete