Oval faces into its final over

ALL good things come to an end — even a scheme of 810 new houses and apartments.

The end is in sight for the groundbreaking Mount Oval Village development in Cork’s Rochestown, with the remaining 120 or so houses likely to occupy builders O’Flynn Construction until some time in 2007. Having started in 1999, the scheme has been steadily built through the country’s most prolonged housing boom.

While the notion of 800 units, with facilities such as shops, creche, pub, restaurants, boutiques and more, seemed audacious at the time, this year now sees planning applications in areas like Cork and Dublin coming in for 1,000-plus unit developments. Watch out for Horgan’s Quay and Cork’s docklands, as well as for Council-selected commuter villages and towns in transport nodes like Carrigtwohill.