Developers threaten another Wexford village
BY ROISIN DE ROSA
Duncannon is a beautiful quiet little village in the southeast of
Wexford. It sits above a white sandy strand against a background
of lovely dark hills sloping down to the sea. It is almost
unspoilt, until now.
Until a few months ago, there was a community hall in the centre
of the village overlooking the strand. It's now gone, the site
sold to developers to build ten apartments.
At a meeting last month to decide whether the Catholic Church
should sell the land for the development 145 people voted against
the developers. About 200 voted in favour. The site went to
auction last week and sold for £300,000. Just a quarter of a mile
up the road, planning permission has already been given for 140
apartments on the old golf course.
``We've seen it all before at Courtown, which has become an
environmental slum,'' Sinn Féin Councillor in New Ross, John
Dwyer, warns. ``In manic overdevelopment in Courtown, Wexford
County Council allowed over 1,200 new houses to be shovelled into
a 10 km coastal strip, to build `holiday homes' and suburban
housing estates.
``All this development was directly inspired by the government's
iniquitous Seaside Resort Tax Incentive Scheme, which has
directly destroyed seaside resorts all round the 26 Counties from
Sligo to Youghal, from Achill to Wexford,'' he says. Under this
scheme, developers could write the price of the holiday home off
against tax on any income over ten years, and 50% of the price
could be written off in the first year.
``There are some 390 on our New Ross UDC housing list,'' says
Dwyer. ``That means about 1,400 people in desperate need of
housing. Yet down the road there is Legoland housing, destroying
the outstanding beauty of the countryside, lying empty for the
bulk of the year, built only for the benefit of a tax breaks.''
Some of these houses are let for a few weeks in the summer.
Mostly they remain empty. As well known environmentalist and
author, Frank McDonald, points out, the Tax Scheme's requirement
that the houses be let for a part of the year are often met
through unscrupulous deals between developers. Locals who suffer
the Forest Park development at Courtown Harbour on their doorstep
complain how beautiful trees were cut down without planning
permission and how the houses in the development will be derelict
in a few years. The council never bothered to even reply to their
letters complaining about the destruction of their woodland and
walkways.
``Nobody could quite convey how bad it (Courtown) really is - and
on a scale so vast that it is almost beyond belief, even in
Ireland,'' McDonald wrote last year, about the development.
``These `developments' have driven the price of a site so high
that people born and bred here, the community, are unable to get
housing for themselves or their children,'' says John Dwyer. ``Land
has jumped in price from some £3,000 per acre to a staggering
£80,000 or £100,000. Courtown should have been a lesson to us
all, where crazy development was allowed without any regard to
services, water, sewage, roads or provision for holidaymakers'
entertainment.''
There have been occasions when An Bord Pleanála has overturned
Wexford County Council's decisions to grant planning permission,
but the developers have normally been let loose by the council.
Rumours abound. Many questions have been asked. ``Corruption is
rife throughout the country, and I see no reason to assume that
Wexford is an exception,'' says John Dwyer. ``Everyone is waiting
for the Flood Tribunal to visit Wexford. People feel powerless to
do anything about it. Meanwhile, the development goes on, and
with it the destruction of our greatest natural resource, the
quality of life and the very survival of communities.
``Who will stop Courtown coming to Duncannon?''
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