Green Party councillor Deirdre de Burca has expressed her concern at the collapse of a road in the Church Gate estate, next to the County Buildings in Wicklow Town. De Burca says that the residents of Church Gate are now in a very difficult situation. The entry road to their estate has now collapsed and the estate has not yet been taken in charge by the council.

“Effectively, although the estate was built in the late nineties, it has not yet been taken in charge despite repeated attempts by the residents to get the council to do so” says de Burca. “This means that the roads in the estate are still the responsibility of the developers, Tindale Ltd. Unfortunately this company has gone into liquidation although its owner has established another company and is still involved in construction in the Wicklow Area.

De Burca says that to complicate matters further, Wicklow Town Council says that the financial bond that was originally paid by the developer has “lapsed” and that there is no real threat or sanction that the council can hold over the developer. “This is quite incredible” says de Burca. “The Town Council has a responsibility to secure an adequate financial bond from developers and to hold onto the bond until the planning conditions have been fully complied with. In this case, there are serious questions to be asked. Did the council actually get a bond from the developer in the first place? If so, why did the bond lapse after two or three years? Who has that bond now? Why are we now looking at a situation where the planning conditions have not been complied with in Church Gate, the estate is not completed properly, the developer has liquidated the construction company that built the estate, the council has no bond from the developer and has refused to date to take the estate in charge”?

The Green Party councillor reports that Wicklow Town Council initially said it had no responsibility to deal with the collapsed road. She says that the Town Council then carried out temporary works to fill the hole in the road and plans to do further work using a 12,000 euro cash bond that it says it previously received from the developer. “While I welcome the temporary works, they certainly are not the solution to the problem in Church Gate” says de Burca. “The residents have told me that the problem is not just with one point on the road that has collapsed. They say that there is a subsidence problem in the estate generally and that down nearer the entrance to the estate the footpath is moving away from the road, with a three inch gap between road and path”.

“The problem in Church Gate now is that neither the council nor the developer will want to take responsibility for the expensive works that will be necessary if there is a genuine problem with subsidence in the estate” says de Burca. “The residents are left holding the can, and if they try to carry out any works to make the road safer, they then become legally responsible for the road. This is an appalling situation for homeowners to find themselves in. This is the kind of situation that will inevitably develop if the Town and County councils don’t act promptly to take estates in charge. At present, developers are getting away with murder”.