Council to spend €200k demolishing €800k site

CLARE County Council is to spend up to €200,000 on demolishing a Traveller accommodation site it constructed at a cost of €800,000 six years ago.

The local authority has tendered for the decommissioning of the temporary Traveller accommodation site at Ballymacravan, near Ennistymon.

The site is vacant following travellers being allocated permanent accommodation in the north Clare town.

Chairman of the Clare Traveller Accommodation Advisory Committee, Cllr Brian Meaney, said yesterday: “The spend on Traveller accommodation is a multiple per capita of the cost of social housing and there are serious question marks around the viability of continuing such expenditure.”

He said the council “has no choice but to spend the €200,000 as it was agreed with local residents the site would be restored”.

Cllr Martin Conway said: “The site is in a very poor condition at the moment. The restoration should have been done before now. It is located at the Ennistymon gateway to the Burren and something needs to be done with the site.

“Local residents did not object to the scheme and the restoration of the site was part of the agreement with the locals.”

Travellers moved into the site in 2005 following a High Court settlement between four Traveller families and the council.

As a result of the court settlement, the council agreed to provide each family with a new mobile home and upgrade facilities at the Ballymacravan halting site outside Ennistymon.

The agreement also protected the Travellers from being permanently housed in the Ballymacraven site.

In the Traveller Accommodation Plan, it shows only four Traveller families out of a total of 130 in Clare have been able to provide housing for themselves from their own resources.

According to the council’s plan, 126 Traveller families had to rely upon local authority intervention to provide them with a home. The council has identified the need to accommodate an additional 123 Traveller families in mainly three centres in the county from 2009-2013.

A council spokesman said yesterday: “The reinstatement of the land at Ballymacraven which, until mid-2009, had been a temporary Traveller site is now out to public works tender. The council committed to reinstating the Ballymacraven land once the permanent development of six houses for Traveller accommodation was completed at Ballymacraven. That development was completed and occupied in Autumn 2009.

“There has been consultation with the Ballymacraven residents association in relation to the boundary treatment for the reinstatement of the site.”