'You'd need a Euromillions win': Ardmore locals priced out of having their own homes

A popular choice for those who can afford a holiday home, no new local authority homes have been built in Ardmore since 2000, and as one local put it, there is nowhere to rent, and houses are unaffordable

Dick Lincoln, Coordinator of Ardmore and Grange Housing Study Group, pictured outside the last council estate, which was built in Ardmore in 2002 by Waterford County Council. Picture: John Hennessy

The meeting wasn’t long underway before pent-up emotions began to spill out. Over 150 local people in Ardmore had gathered on an autumn evening in St Declan’s Hall to hear about a new investment initiative from Waterford City and County Council. But once a suspended plan to build new houses in the popular tourist village was mentioned, all else faded into the background.

Without proper investment in housing, the meeting was repeatedly told, “the local population will diminish to the point that Ardmore will become no more than a notch on a tourist map and a seasonal attraction,” reporter Christy Parker wrote of the gathering in the village.