Planner warns 9 years to clear vacant houses if slump prevails

ADDRESSING the national conference of the Irish Planning Institute, Ciaran Tracey, planning officer with Leitrim County Council said if the economic conditions that prevailed in the last year do not pick up, it will take “about nine years to clear vacant housing stock in urban parts of the county and God knows how long elsewhere”.

Mr Tracey, speaking in a personal capacity, said the problem of oversupply in Leitrim was largely a legacy of the rural renewal scheme and its accompanying tax breaks in the Upper Shannon region.

He said while the scheme brought significant benefits it was “actually ill conceived” and instead of ending when it should have in the summer of 2002, it was extended so that tax breaks were available until 2008.