This article is from page 1 of the 2014-05-06 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 1 JPG
CLARE will need to provide a thousand new homes over the next four years but there will be no need to build any new houses in Killaloe, Kilkee and Kilrush according to a national report issued by the Housing Agency.
Over the next four years it is projected that the Ennis area will need 534 new houses, Shannon 290, Sixmilebridge 139, Newmarket 55 and Ardnacrusha 44. The number for the other specified towns in the report, Killaloe, Kilrush and Kilkee is zero.
The report was commissioned nationally to assess future housing needs based on population and economic assumptions, with natural growth and migration also factored into the findings.
The Government advisory body on housing is predicting a rise in population in the Ennis area of 4 per cent over the next four years, (rising from 25,326 to 26,360). The report anticipates that the populations of Kilrush and Kilkee will fall slightly by around 1 per cent while Killaloe will actually record a very slight population increase of less than 1 per cent.
Sixmilebridge is expected to record the highest population growth over the coming years – by 2018 the Housing Agency estimates the town will have grown its population by 12 per cent to 2,866.
Shannon is also another town expected to expand considerably over the next few years, the population once again expected to top 10,000. It is currently 9,673. The news that Clare will need over a thousand new houses to be built over the coming four years suggests that the economic recovery is finally underway in the county. Nationally the pick up is centred on the east coast, with the counties of Longford and Leitrim returning a zero number for their entire housing requirements.
URBAN SUPPLEMENTS POPULATION IN
2011 CENSUS PROJECTED POPULATION 2018 MINIMUM HOUSING REQUIREMENT 2014-2018 ARDNACRUSHA (CASTLEBANK) 1,414 1,504 44 ENNIS TOWN AND ENVIRONS 25,360 26,326 534 KILKEE TOWN AND ENVIRONS 1,139 1,101 0 KILLALOE 1,292 1,367 0 KILRUSH AND ITS ENVIRONS 2,695 2,604 0 NEWMARKET ON FERGUS 1,773 1,849 55 SHANNON LEGAL TOWN 9,673 10,071 290 SIXMILEBRIDGE 2,507 2,866 139