Related Stories

• Frustration at delay in acquiring site for new Gaelscoil in Fermoy
  
  
• Long distance swimmer Owen in line for Outsider People of Year award
  
  
• Gardai urge Christmas caution for both drivers and pedestrians
  
  
• Traffic warden clamping down on parking in M’town
  
  
• CBS light up tree in memory of the Brothers
  
  
• Former Fermoy garage owner makes biggest settlement in the country to revenue
  
  
• Bronze age cooking pits uncovered at flood protection works site
  
  
• Mary heading to capital for ‘Couch to 5k’ challenge
  
  
• Fianna Fail leader to visit South Limerick next week
  
  
• Doyenne of Cork media celebrated in new book
  
  
• Avondhu area locals help Console through Cork Mini Marathon run
  
  
• Flashback shows the late Paddy Fraher, Fermoy.
  
  

Councillors O’Donovan and McCarthy with four of the 13 people promised houses at the Crann Ard Estate in Fermoy over a year ago. They are, l-r: Josie Dee, Colette Granville, Jessie Duggan and Sandra Gettings. Photo: Ellen Lynch

The would-be tenants of 13 houses allocated in the Crann Ard estate in Fermoy are facing a second Christmas without being in the homes they were promised over a year ago.

The houses were allocated in November 2012 by the Munster branch of the National Association of Building Co-operatives (NABCO) to people on Cork County Council's housing list in Fermoy they deemed to be suitable for the houses on the private estate. They were even told their house numbers. They received letters from some local politicians who congratulated them on getting the houses and wished them well in their new homes.

They've been unable to move into them though because of an unfinished snag list of works to be done on the estate, including the repair of the badly pot-holed road. The developer went bust, leaving Cork County Council to try to draw down the bond from the bank holding it to fund the works.

The waiting tenants said previously they were willing to move in to their houses with the estate as it was, if the council gave an undertaking to finish the works at a later stage. Indeed one woman offered a house already lives on the estate, in a rented house. She can see across the road from the front window of her rented house the new home she was allocated well over a year ago.

They've heard recently that the bond money has been drawn down and a work crew has been seen there in recent weeks but they've had no confirmation of that from either Munster NABCO or Cork County Council. In fact, they say, they've had nothing in writing from them to inform them of progress or confirm a moving-in date.

They are resigned, at this stage, to not being in their new houses for this Christmas either but say they just want a date when they can move in. One woman has furniture she purchased for her new house stored with a family member. Another moved her children from a school in an outlying area, enrolling them in a Fermoy primary school because she thought she'd be living there. She now has to make the trip in and out of Fermoy daily to drop them off and collect them. "Some days I just stay in town, hanging around until it's time to collect them, to save on petrol," she told The Avondhu.

The house another one of the 13 is living in, is up for sale and a number of them are under pressure from landlords to let them know if they are staying or going. They haven't wanted to sign up to new year-long leases when there's a chance of being rehoused in Crann Ard. "I've just come out of hospital. I don't need the stress," one woman told this reporter.

All are adamant that they don't want to give up the chance of being housed at Crann Ard. "We don't want to give up on these houses," one person stressed. "We really like the houses, it's in a nice area and the location is good."

Two local councillors have been fighting their case for over a year now. Noel McCarthy and Tadhg O'Donovan vowed they'd continue their fight for them when they met them at the estate on Wednesday. They are supremely frustrated at the lack of progress.

"I've asked again and again about it and pushed it at council meetings," Cllr McCarthy said. He too has heard that the bond money has been released for the works and now wants a timeline for them and for the families to be given a moving-in date by the county council.

"This can never be allowed happen again," Cllr Tadhg O'Donovan said. "The council needs to learn from this so that no one else is put through this," he asserted.

blog comments powered by Disqus