Glaring imbalance in rural housing developments than in urban areas says Councillor Noel Jordan 

While these had been welcome recent movements in relation to new social and private housing developments within the Donegal Municipal District in some of its larger towns like Bundoran and Donegal, there still remained a glaring imbalance in relation to the provision of social housing in places like Dunkineely, Bruckless and small villages from Carrick to Glencolmcille with more rural settings.

And people were gravitating to the housing lists for larger urban areas within the MD, as they see no realistic prospect of anything housing being developed in the more rural areas, or where the applicants may originally be from, and on first consideration, would resettle there. 

This was the view taken by Cllr Noel Jordan (SF) at the recent meeting of the Donegal Municipal District.  

“We have been fairly successful in the Donegal Municipal District in bigger twins with housing developments. But the reason that there are so many names on that waiting list in these areas is that they feel they have no chance of getting a house within the towns of Carrick, Glen and Kilcar. There’ll be no big housing developments there.

“What I am asking for is them ten families in Kilcar, or the nine families in Mountcharles, to purchase the land bank in those towns and villages and build those ten or nine homes in those locations, so that the people that were born and reared in those areas can stay in those areas.”

Those people would then help regenerate the economy in those rural settings.

He added that the process of acquiring the land and going through the whole process of building houses was far too slow.     

“They are going out and trying to identify land banks, and there is so much paperwork and administration to get it to that part and get them over the line.”In my opinion it is a lot easier to build 9 or ten houses than build a 100, less paperwork in my opinion in getting it done.

“Buit the most important thing is that you are regenerating that village you are building them in, keeping your wee post office open as well as keeping your shops alive. 

“People feel the need to put their name down for a bigger town as they are more likely to get a house. It has been a long long time since we built small developments in villages for social houses. So we need to start to go back and do that again.

“We should be concentrating on that so that people can remain in those settings and think about those people that are in need of that house and who should be living in their own area, building in their own village and that closes out many of those lists. 

I would love to come in a meeting here and say of KIlcar, Carrick or Glen and say no housing is needed there and the reason there is no housing need there is because the nine or ten houses that were required there, have been built and there are now.      

He concluded by saying that in the case of emergency needs when it came to anything, including housing for local families in Donegal, emergency and shorter route options can be identified and followed through. 

He added that there were definitely land owners in every town and village that he would be aware of, that would be prepared to sell land for such smaller developments.