The Clare Champion Clare news, sport, entertainment and local notes
IDA client companies recently received a briefing on the state of the housing market in County Clare.
Members at a meeting of Shannon Municipal District were informed of the briefing by Director of Services with Clare County Council Liam Conneally.
He said that the IDA’s regional manager had asked him to prepare a presentation for the IDA client companies in the Mid-West, in relation to the amount of residential land and the availability of housing in the county.
Mr Conneally said that they had wanted to hear about the future pipeline of housing, the number of planning applications received and granted, and short, medium and long term projections.
He said that in Clare planning permission has been granted for over 1,000 units this year, and that there is “a considerable pipleine in the system yet to be acted on”.
There was also a Q & A session with the company representatives and he said it was “a useful exercise”.
Mr Conneally said that it is very important that the Shannon embankment works get done as quickly as possible “to take the flood risk away from lands in our control and in private ownership”.
He added, “I don’t believe that we can do it fast enough. It’s crucial for our second largest urban centre.”
Councillor Gerry Flynn said that the housing situation is extremely difficult.
“It’s a huge issue and it can only be addressed by multiple methods, I’ve never seen anything like it.”
He said that there is a need for much more urgency to be shown around improving Shannon’s embankments, and he said the importance of it had been shown when there was flooding close to the airport in 2009.
Owen Ryan
Owen Ryan has been a journalist with the Clare Champion since 2007, having previously worked for a number of other regional titles in Limerick, Galway and Cork.
