I don’t know the extent to which this kind of thing is happening but, I suspect, a lot. It seems that one of the consequences of the combined evils of the downturn in the economy and our disregard for planning/public administration is that overstretched developers are abandoning new housing schemes and leaving them half finished.

This one,

in the midlands, is typical of what I believe to be occurring: in this particular case about half of the forty-odd houses which the developer received planning permission for were completed before being sold at the very height of the market. But when things started to go pear shaped, all work stopped and the site was more or less abandoned leaving the following: about twenty houses occupied; a cluster of almost finished houses;

another cluster of half finished houses;

some exposed foundations for intended houses;

unfinished roads; street lights that don’t work; piles of unused timber frame walls which are now home to a large population of rats (the HSE has written a report about it);

and a storm water system which empties out onto neighbouring land which, itself, is only yards away from a cemetery.

The local Council has issued enforcement notices and so on, but I’m sure it will come as no surprise to the unfortunate residents of our housing estate when I express the opinion that it’s only a matter of weeks before some of the half finished houses, which sit unlocked and unguarded,

will be taken over by drug addicts: this, the punishment the people who bought the houses receive for mortgaging themselves to the hilt for the rest of their lives for the crime of wanting somewhere modest and respectable to raise a family.

I seem to remember a time when it was standard practise for developers to post bonds with local authorities to ensure completion of projects – whatever happened to that? has the practise stopped? are the bond amounts too small to see the projects through to completion? Or what?  What is the point of having a planning system at all if situations like this are allowed to happen? What is the actual point of hiring architects and engineers, what is the point of wasting time at meetings with mid ranking bureaucrats, generating masses of paperwork, getting into scrapes with An Bord Pleanala, and so forth if, in the end, this is all it amounts to?