'Traveller voice' informed design of €18m housing plan for Cork City halting site, says council
Yard Is Where Of 15 Ballyvolane Detached Proposed Homes The In Ellis's Construction
The ‘Traveller voice’ has helped inform the design of an €18m housing regeneration plan for a halting site in Cork City, where children are living in appalling conditions.
Details of the 27-unit scheme for the Spring Lane site in Ballyvolane, first reported by the Irish Examiner last week, were outlined to members of Cork City Council’s north-east local area committee on Tuesday night.
They were told it will include the redevelopment of the existing halting site, which is home to around 50 families, and the construction of 15 detached homes in a group housing scheme on the adjoining Ellis’s Yard site, which has been plagued by illegal dumping for years.
There will be no provision for stables for horses or other livestock. Just over half the funding will be spent on civil engineering works with around €8m allocated for the housing element.
Councillors were told that the existing halting site will be redeveloped as a 12-unit Traveller accommodation scheme, with a single-storey, three-bed unit in each bay, each with accommodation for five people, with a 15-unit group housing scheme on Ellis’s Yard, set in two mini estates.
Six two-storey detached houses will be built on Ellis Yard West, including one five-bedroom house with accommodation for 11 people, and five three-bedroom homes, each with accommodation for six people.
Nine two-storey detached homes will be built on the Ellis Yard East section, including two four-bedroom houses with accommodation for eight people in each, and seven three-bedroom homes, each with accommodation for six people.
While several families have moved off the site into settled community housing in recent years, several other families who currently live there will require alternative housing elsewhere, with options being explored now.
The briefing followed a broad outline of the scheme to an Oireachtas joint committee on Traveller issues last month following confirmation that government funding had been secured for the work almost two years after the site was the focus of a damning report about its living conditions.
The halting site was opened in 1989 with 10 bays but as family numbers expanded over the years, there was unauthorised expansion into adjoining fields which led to serious overcrowding, and living conditions deteriorated.
In his report, Ombudsman for Children, Dr Niall Muldoon, found that the council had failed to consider the best interests of children living on the site by allowing them to live in filthy, overcrowded, rat-infested, and unsafe living conditions. The poor conditions had a “significant and prolonged adverse impact” on children living there, the Ombudsman said.
But at Tuesday’s briefing, council officials said the proposed ‘Traveller-appropriate accommodation’ is the result of a lengthy design process informed by reference to local area objectives, local and national planning policy, and following extensive consultation between city council representatives and Traveller representatives.
“The housing operations directorate and mediators have played a continually active role in commenting and providing valuable feedback to Cork city architects, providing a ‘Traveller voice' throughout the design development process to date,” they said.
However, Independent Cllr Ken O’Flynn said the briefing raised more questions than it answered.
“Officials seem to be expecting everyone to believe that what’s being put forward now is the solution to everything but it’s a difficult pill to swallow for the settled people of Ballyvolane given how many times trust has been broken before,” he said.
Last week, the Traveller Visibility Group (TVG) said the long-awaited and long overdue housing scheme “needs political will” to ensure it gets over the line.