Affordable housing scheme not envisaged in Louth in near future

Louth County Council's Draft Scheme of Priority for Affordable Dwelling Purchase Arrangements was put to members at last week's Louth County Council Meeting.

The purpose of this Scheme of Priority is to set out the manner in which affordable dwelling purchase arrangements will be made available by the Council and the methodology that will be applied to determine the order of priority to be accorded to eligible households where the demand for such arrangements exceeds the dwellings or resources available.

The Director of Services reminded the members however, that an affordable housing scheme is not envisaged in Louth in the near future.

While the Council has sites in both Dundalk and Drogheda, due to the ongoing finance issues in the Council however, the building of affordable houses is not envisaged.

Housing was high on the agenda at the June meeting, with the number of outstanding maintenance requests and vacant local authority houses brought up by a number of councillors.

According to the Louth County Council monthly housing report, the Council has received 1,584 maintenance requests so far this year, with 321 received in May.

The number of outstanding requests at the end of the month stood at 421, with 42 of them having been submitted during May.

The meeting did hear, however, that there was a possibility that some of the requests may be duplicates, if for example they were submitted to the Council more than once.

The number of vacant properties was also highlighted at the meeting. According to the May report, the Council has 72 vacant homes in the county, which are re-lets.

The Council also have ownership of four new properties which have not been previously tenanted and 23 properties that were obtained under a Compulsory Purchase Order (CPO), but are not yet ready for occupation.

Cllr Maeve Yore asked the Director of Services if the Council has investigated why there have been so many maintenance requests over the past two years. In response the Director of Services said that there was a number of reasons, which could include the attitude of some tenant's to the property.