Council calls in planning bonds in Westbury

AS fears grow for the future viability of a Mid-West construction firm, Clare County Council has confirmed it called in planning bonds totalling €907,000 concerning housing developments not fully completed by the firm in Westbury about nine months ago.
Director of service, Nora Kaye, has revealed the council decided to exercise its option to call in six or seven planning bonds held by Chieftain Construction Limited concerning estates in Westbury, which is one of the largest private housing estates in the Mid-West.
In an exclusive interview with The Clare Champion, Ms Kaye said issues arose before planning bonds were due to be renewed by the company and the council decided to call in the value of the bonds in March 2010.
Confirming all the planning bonds relating to a number of developments built by the company in Westbury had now been realised, she explained this process was completed following correspondence between the two parties at the time.
Limerick developer and yachtsman, Ger O’Rourke, who set up Chieftain nearly 20 years ago, has called creditors’ meetings for two of the main companies in his Chieftain Construction group after an apparent dramatic fall-off in business.
The creditors’ meetings for Chieftain Construction and Chieftain Construction Holdings are due to take place at 10am in the Absolute Hotel, Limerick on Friday.
It is understood that the firms, which have projects in Ireland, Britain, the US and South Africa, are experiencing trading difficulties and a liquidator is expected to be proposed and appointed at this meeting.
The company’s Irish projects include several residential developments and the €150 million Coonagh Cross retail park on the outskirts of Limerick.
It opened in 2007 but has struggled to attract major tenants to complement the large Tesco Shopping Centre.
Chieftain also had plans for a 17-storey, €50 million hotel development next to Lime Street Train Station in central Liverpool.
A keen sailor, O’Rourke owns a 50-ft yacht called Chieftain and became the first Irish skipper to win the Fastnet Race in 2007. The previous year, the yacht won its class in the 700-mile Sydney-Hobart race.
In June last year, O’Rourke told the High Court AIB had courted his business aggressively and had abandoned basic lending principles by ‘‘throwing’’ money at him without looking for independent land valuations or doing proper due diligence.
AIB had sought judgements of €20.7m against O’Rourke but the court ruled that O’Rourke had an arguable defence to the bank’s claim and was entitled to a full hearing of the matter.
A month earlier, Chieftain surrendered a €75m, 35-storey apartment development in Chicago to private equity buyers.
Expressing concern about the impact of Chieftain’s trading difficulties on the long-awaited takeover of the Westbury Housing Estate by Clare County Council, Councillor Pascal Fitzgerald urged the council to use the €907,000 it had received from Chieftain bonds to complete the necessary work in estates, which weren’t fully completed.
Since construction of the estate was started by McInerney Builders over 16 years ago, Councillor Fitzgerald recalled residents have been left in the dark concerning a definite timeframe as to when the Clare authority was going to assume responsibility for the entire estate. 
Citing ongoing issues such as unfinished houses, roads in disrepair and the need for traffic-calming measures such as speed ramps, Councillor Fitzgerald stated that Clare County Council has a duty of care that it needed to fulfil to the residents in the Westbury area.
The former Westbury councillor has pledged to renew his campaign for a speedy takeover of the estate with the county council in the coming weeks.
Ms Kaye said the planned takeover of Westbury by the council was complicated by a number of different factors. This included the fact that there was still some land to be developed in the Westbury area, the main access road leading in and out of Westbury was provided by one developer, yet it was used by all developers and a number of complex legal issues required clarification before the council was in a position to proceed any further.
Asked whether any planning bonds were still held by McInerney Builders, Ms Kaye confirmed there was only one remaining, which was relatively small and noted that a bond provided almost two decades ago would be much smaller than the amounts required today.
Ms Kaye admitted no final estimate has been done of the likely cost of works required to complete the estates in Westbury to date.
Extensive efforts by The Clare Champion to contact a company spokesman proved unsuccessful.