This article is from page 4 of the 2008-08-12 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 4 JPG
THE housing slowdown in Clare continues with new figures from the Department of the Environ- ment showing that there were just eight new house registrations for the month of June.
The figures show that there were 98 new house registrations this year compared with 98 new house regis- trations for all of June last year.
[Hustrating the downturn, last year’s figures show there were 145 new house registrations in February; 167 in March and 129 in May. The mas-
sive drop in new house registrations is expected to feed into the number of new house completions next year.
There were 95 new house comple- tions in June and this compares with 159 completions for June 2007. For the first half of this year, there were 1,095 homes completed while there were 1,452 homes completed in the first six months of last year.
The June performance was not the worst return for the year to date in terms of new house registrations. In April, there were just two house registrations while in January there (tom UNL oe
The collapse in new house registra- tions coincides with an Ennis Town Council and Clare County Council embargo on new housing develop- ments in Ennis and its environs be- cause of the inadequate sewage in- JG u-F OMe CeLAUD Kes
In spite of the downturn and the drop off in demand for new houses, developers have warned the council of the economic impact of the failure to accommodate new housing.
In a submission to the local author- ity, local developers claim that de- spite more than ten years of unprec- edented development and growth in
and around Ennis, we are now left in a situation that the area is being choked by a chronic lack of capacity in the wastewater treatment system.
“Although the Ennis main drain- age is being progressed, the obvious deficiencies in the current infrastruc- ture, which include storm water in- filtration into sewer network, lack of treatment capacity and capacity in the pump station network have been ignored for far too long.
“The effect of no development op- portunities caused by this infrastruc- ture shortfall will be widespread,” the developers warn.