Offaly's towns and villages are blighted by derelict buildings - councillor

Local councillor Clare Claffey told a recent meeting that Offaly's towns and villages are blighted by a high number of derelict buildings.
She told the February meeting of Offaly County Council that this is a long running problem which the councillors have raised many times but it hasn't been properly tackled.
Cllr Claffey was told by a Council official that the County Council has completed its first compulsory purchases of derelict properties.
“The process,” said the official, “which can take six months if no objection is lodged with An Bord Pleanála, involves a legal transfer process, a technical design and build project and then construction.” She described the process as hard work but worthwhile, particularly when a derelict site begins to attract antisocial behaviour.
The meeting was told that three CPOs were completed in 2021, “and we are developing a CPO Programme for 2022 and onwards.”
Cllr John Clendennen said it's an essential process:
“We need to really increase our level of engagement with the property owners to see if we can come to some sort of resolution,” he said, “whereby the empty properties can be occupied once again, bringing not only the buildings to life but also bring back a bit of life to parts of the towns and villages where they are located. The more derelict properties are reoccupied then the more support there will be for local services and the greater the knock-on beneficial effects for the economy.”
Cllr Claffey said the statistics of the number of houses in the county which are vacant are “shocking”.
10% of houses in the Birr rural area (which includes Ferbane and Banagher) are vacant. 17% of the houses in the Clonmacnoise area are vacant. 20% of the houses in the Shannonbridge area are vacant.
“Our towns are blighted by dereliction and vacancy,” commented Cllr Claffey. “There's also a safety issue with some of these buildings because they can attract playing children, and the structures might be a bit unstable.” She criticised the government's “Housing for All” strategy, pointing out that it's building houses, but not enough, and not quickly enough. She pointed out that the homeless figures, which always remained at a very high level, are now rising again. “The housing crisis has been with us for years and we haven't made any significant headway into it. If anything, it seems to be getting worse.”
She said a lot more owners of vacant properties should be contacted by the Council.
Sharon Kennedy, Director of Services, said it is the Council's intention to significantly tackle the homeless problem during the coming year.
Cllr Noel Cribbin told the meeting that he recently counted sixty vacant houses in Edenderry. “It's a very high number and they are scattered all over the town,” he remarked, “including Francis Street, St Mary's Road and Dublin Road. It's sad to see the vacant houses. A few years ago there were families living in them and they were busy with life. Now they are empty, locked and boarded up.”
Cllr Ken Smollen said he knows a number of people in Tullamore who have received notices to quit. Some of these people are on HAP (Housing Assistance Payment), most are on RAS (Rental Accommodation Scheme). "They are vulnerable. The system is treating them without empathy. The Council can't just abandon them." Sharon Kennedy said the Council is engaging with the people Cllr Smollen was referring to. “We are seeking accommodation for them,” she said.
Cllr Clendennen said he's worried about the future of the county's villages. “We must bring more life and services back into them,” he remarked. “It's a matter of the greatest urgency.”
Sharon Kennedy said the CPO process only applies to properties which are classified as derelict, and not to those which are classified as vacant. She said it takes about a year to process a CPO, “from the initiation up to the point when the derelict property has been done up and is once again habitable.”
GeoDirectory  published the  Commercial Vacancy Rates Report for Q4 2021 this week. It revealed the following:
Offaly's commercial vacancy rate remained unchanged at 15.5% in Q4 2021.
Of the towns in Offaly surveyed, Edenderry had the highest commercial vacancy rate (27.7%), while Birr had the lowest (15.5%).
In total, there were 29,317 vacant commercial units dispersed across Ireland in Q4 2021.
At 20.0%, Sligo was the county with the highest commercial vacancy rate, followed by Leitrim and Roscommon, both 17.1%.
The lowest commercial vacancy rates were recorded in Meath (10.2%), Wexford (10.4%) and Kerry (11.3%).
Nationally, the commercial vacancy rate was 13.9% in Q4 2021, which was the highest level of commercial vacancy recorded by GeoDirectory since the report began in 2013. Commercial vacancies increased in 15 out of 26 counties.
In the year to Q4 2021, there were 556 fewer Retail and Wholesale units recorded across the country, amounting to a decrease of 1.5%.
“At 13.9%, the commercial vacancy rate in Q4 2021 was at its highest level since GeoDirectory began reporting on this data in 2013,” said Dara Keogh, Chief Executive of GeoDirectory. “This increase in commercial vacancies is not reflected in terms of numbers in employment, which according to the CSO increased steadily in 2021. This may suggest that Covid-19 has accelerated businesses to pivot towards enhancing their online presence and scaling-back their physical offering on main streets. As working from home is expected to continue beyond the pandemic, and online commerce increases in popularity, there needs to be a policy conversation around how vacant commercial properties are regenerated on our main streets for wider benefit.  I think the most interesting statistic is the over 29,000 vacant commercial units across Ireland. When combined with our over 90,000 vacant residential units in our Residential Building Report published in January, this suggests that there are almost 120,000 vacant buildings, a good proportion of which could potentially be returned  to  commercial, community or residential uses on the streets of towns and cities across the country."