This article is from page 12 of the 2013-08-13 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 12 JPG
THE number of planning applications received by Clare County Council during the first half of this year was down 25 per cent on the previous year.
The latest edition of the National Housing Construction Index shows that Clare has the fifth highest percentage drop in planning applications this year.
The number of houses that commenced building this year was also slightly down on last year with a drop of four per cent.
A spokesperson for links2plans, the company that issued the figures said, “Even though Clare only has a marginal drop in its commencements this year, the new figures on the significant drop in planning applications suggests that we may expect to see a significant drop in planning commencements in the near future.”
There were 179 housing planning applications lodged with Clare County Council in 2012, and this dropped by 45 to 134 this year.
The number of commencements dropped from 113 to 109.
“Compared to Clare, the outlook is positive for particular pockets around the country which are experiencing an increase in commencements and applications,” said the Managing Director of Link2Plans, Danny O’Shea.
“The Link2Plans team have seen significant changes in activity throughout the country which in part can be explained by the weather conditions in the first few months of 2013. There are however clear signs that the growth in residential construction activity is being felt in Dublin and other counties are still some way back. It will be interesting to see if the dry weather experienced throughout June and July will see the next edition of the index, register an increase in project commencements.”