If I could sell in the morning, I would’
In view of her front door was an area earmarked by the developer as a future playground.
“I thought I’d be able to stand at the front door with my cup of tea and watch the kids playing. For me, that was a big selling point, to know I could keep an eye on the children and know they were safe,” the mother-of-three said.
But instead of the swings and slides and seesaws promised for Gleann Ull housing estate, Denise is left looking at an unsightly and expansive clutter of building debris, scaffolding, raised manholes and other miscellaneous items. The nearest playground for Ciara, 6, Jamie, 9, and Shane, 13, is in Fermoy, five miles away.
Luckily, Denise learned to drive ahead of the move from Togher, Cork city, to Ballyhooly — in fact she ended up driving her children to school in Ballyhooly from Togher for a period because their home was not ready by the promised completion date.
Now she must contend with an unfinished road and no public lighting more than two years after moving in to the estate described on the advertising hoarding at “a select development of 40 homes” — when less than 20 homes have been built. She and her husband paid €250,000 but reckon the value is now well down. Others in the estate paid €385,000 for a four-bed semi-D.
“If I could sell in the morning, I would, but with the estate the way it is — even as you drive in the stonework on the entrance is only half done — who would buy?” Denise said.
Gleann Ull developer Ian O’Brien said they fully intend to finish the estate. He said they have not completed it is as they are building on demand. He said the playground will be provided as part of phase two and that was always the intention. He said he hopes to complete other outstanding works such as the road, public lighting and the wall to the front of the estate in coming weeks.
Grass cutting, he contends, will also be carried out over the summer. “We are taking our time because we are being prudent and we have a better chance that way of reaching where we all want to be once the market improves.”
In a nearby estate, Lios Ard, Deirdre Hussain gestures towards an ugly expanse of fenced-off ground that should have been a pleasant green. She has three children ranging in age from two-and-a-half years to five months and she worries her oldest could creep under the fence and injure herself. “The green was a big selling point when we bought the house,” she says.
To the side of this fenced off area, scaffolding surrounds two houses where construction has halted.
A spokesperson for developers Brompton Homes said these were two of eight additional houses planned for the estate which they believed Cork County Council intended to purchase, but because the agreement with the council had fallen through, the houses had not been completed.
“There should have been eight houses fronting on to this green, but the council wrote to us saying they were not in a position to purchase because they had run out of money. We would like to finish the houses and the estate, as we have done in many other Brompton Homes developments, but we, like everyone else, are the victims of market conditions and these dictate how quickly we can finish the estate,” the spokesperson said.
A spokesperson for Cork County Council says they did “not enter into any contract to purchase houses from the developers of this estate”.
