In the grim table of local authority derelict sites registers, one county stands out among the rest. Limerick City and County Council has 412 properties on its derelict sites register, more than Dublin’s four local authorities and Cork city combined.
Limerick is not especially afflicted with derelict properties – alas, the problem throughout Ireland is universal – but it has resolved to take it seriously.
While other counties have demurred at tackling the problem, usually citing funding or staffing issues, Limerick has had a dedicated derelict properties team in place since 2017.
In the past five years it has carried out almost 8,000 inspections, served more than 2,800 notices and has or is planning to compulsorily acquire 300 properties in Limerick city and county.
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The council is not only doing something about dereliction, but is seen to be doing something, regularly posting the list of properties it is seeking to acquire on its news website.
Owners of derelict sites in the county know they will get a notice sooner or later if their properties are lying idle. The public is encouraged to bring potentially derelict buildings to the council’s attention.
The decision to put together a dereliction team in 2017 was a collective one, explains the local authority’s property manager, Audrey Crowe.
The management and councillors signed up to it straight away. The legislation was already there: the Derelict Sites Act 1990 and the Urban Regeneration Housing Act 2015. What was needed was will and expertise.
“We get a lot of local authorities on to us. We were staffed and we were financially resourced to do this. It was funded through our own budgets initially,” Crowe says.
“A big factor has been the continuity of staff. We have legal expertise that has been working with us since 2018 and they have been very successful in helping us.”
However, Crowe is fully aware that “Rome wasn’t built in a day”. It has taken this long for the council to get its head around its powers under the Derelict Sites Act and to make the initiative work.
“We started on the low-hanging fruit, sites that have been derelict for years and where no owner was apparent,” she says. “We are at the stage now where we have a full unit tackling vacancy and dereliction. We have been very, very successful.”
Between 2019 and last year, the council brought 326 properties back into use. It has a revolving fund. Properties are put on the open market and the proceeds used to pay for compulsory purchases if the owners can be found.
Crowe says the experience to date suggests most dereliction is not the result of avaricious developers holding on to a site while it goes up in value. Usually there is a problem with ownership, or the owner does not have the resources to do their property up or there is an emotional attachment to a building which has fallen into disuse.
“We make our judgment call. We are trying to help owners. We tell them all the schemes that have become available,” she says. “Ultimately, we want them to bring them back into reuse themselves. If all else fails, we use our compulsory powers and we clean title to ensure there are no ownership issues.”
The vacant property refurbishment grant (VPRG), also known as Croí Cónaithe, has been a big success in tackling dereliction in Limerick, as in many other counties.
There have been almost 500 applications received, of which 350 have been approved.
The council’s endeavours are very apparent in the town of Abbeyfeale on the Limerick-Kerry border. Equidistant between the employment centres of Limerick city, Tralee and Killarney, it’s a prosperous town, albeit one with significant dereliction.
The Department of Housing has set up a pilot project, contributing €2.5 million to proposals in 12 towns and villages in Limerick, with the council providing €800,000 from its own resources. Six sites in Abbeyfeale are currently being brought back from dereliction using the fund.
Colbert Terrace was an exemplar of the idea that dereliction is contagious. Nine out of the 12 houses on it were put on the derelict sites register until the local authority became involved. They were all market failures. The level of dereliction is such that no owner or developer would touch them.
Now all nine are in various stages of reconstruction, two by the council. Private owners, who acquired the properties from the council, did so on the basis that they must complete the refurbishment within a year.
The Bridge Inn on Church Street in Abbeyfeale had been derelict for 20 years. It was purchased by agreement with the owner at the end of 2021. It is now being developed into two properties, a family home and a one-bedroom self-contained unit. It will then be put on the open market.
The scale of dereliction throughout the country is such that even a local authority as active as Limerick cannot tackle every site.
[ Dublin’s vacant buildings: ‘It’s my property, I’ll do whatever I want with it’Opens in new window ]
One forlorn site in Abbeyfeale is JD Daly’s, a handsome former pub with a decorative facade which was built in 1859 but has been lying idle for decades. It was once a shop and pub of the kind that were ubiquitous in rural Ireland.
The council acquired it as a “last resort” from its owners last summer, says Gerard O’Donovan, the derelict sites manager in the town.
“It will be a reward to restore the decorative plasterwork. It’s been a big part of a historical market town. It would be great to see it brought back into use.”
