Skibbereen residents to be surveyed in bid to help tackle dereliction
Faces Centre Weled Skibbereen’s Ruth New The But Warned The Several Field’s Town Of First Field Inclusion Town Initiative In Supervalu Challenges
A survey of people living and working in Skibbereen has been announced as part of a plan to tackle dereliction and “breathe new life” into the West Cork market town.
Cork County Council has been granted national funding for Skibbereen to develop a regeneration plan under a national “Town Centre First” initiative.
But the local authority collected no derelict sites levies in all of West Cork Municipal District (MD) in 2022 and doesn’t keep a list of the derelict sites in the area.
A Derelict Sites Register is meant to be maintained by the local authority under the Derelict Sites Act 1990. Once on the register, an annual levy of 3% of the value of the property is charged to incentivise property owners to restore, make safe and use their buildings.
But West Cork MD collected no derelict sites levies in 2022, Cork County Council confirmed.
West Cork MD, which covers an area including Bantry, Castletownbere, Clonakilty, Dunmanway, Schull, with the local MD office in Skibbereen, is the only one of Cork county’s eight Municipal Districts with no derelict sites register.
Some locals say Cork County Council have long neglected the issue of dereliction and that it’s time for a tougher approach to the town’s derelict buildings.
Ruth Field of Field’s Supervalu said she welcomes Skibbereen’s inclusion in the new Town Centre First initiative, but that the town faced several challenges including traffic management and dereliction.
“There are buildings sitting empty in the middle of Skibbereen for 30 years, and it’s the middle of a housing crisis,” Ms Field said.
Ms Field, who works at her multigenerational family grocery business in the town centre, pointed to the former Convent of Mercy, gutted by a blaze in 2020 after having been vacant for over 20 years, as an example of the dereliction visible in the town.
“It’s the greatest crime of the last ten years that that beautiful chapel burned down and no one has done anything with it since,” she said.
“There are buildings in the middle of town and they hardly have a roof on them anymore. Make them into accommodation, make them into a cinema, whatever. But do something with them.”
Skibbereen’s regeneration plan begins with a survey, available until September 8 on Cork County Council’s website. Then it will move to a “more focused consultation with key stakeholder groups to mark the start of the plan development process.”
A “town regeneration officer” for County Cork has recently been appointed under the Town Centre First scheme, the council confirmed.
The Town Centre First scheme is a joint strategy by the Department of Rural and Community Development and the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage.
The Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage wouldn’t comment on whether they would take action to ensure Cork County Council began keeping a derelict sites register or charging dereliction levies.
“It’s a matter for local authorities to determine the most appropriate use of the legislation within their respective functional areas,” a Housing Department press spokesperson said.