80 Social Houses For Greystones

The Charlesland and Burnaby Mills sites. Pic: Hawkeye

hen the Government released their latest social housing build figures last week, we were surprised to see 80 listed as being at Burnaby, Greystones.

Vague, to say the least, and highly unlikely to be actually situated at Ireland’s First Ever Planned Estate.

There’s been some good news of late on this front though. In November of last year, there’d been 75 social housing units approved at Lott Lane, part of plans for 147 social and affordable houses in Kilcoole, four age-friendly homes at Killincarrig’s Castle Villas and Millbank, and more recently, 14 one-bed apartments for the elderly approved at Carraig Eden, two disabled-friendly social housing builds in Knockroe, 82 new social houses unveiled at Newtown and beyond.

So, we emailed the housing department at Wicklow County Council to find out where these 80 social houses were actually being built. We knew of 41 down by Charlesland, and there’d been the controversial Part 8 application for a neighbouring 166 houses with 30% to 40% social and affordable houses that saw Cllr Tom Fortune walk out on a council vote.

Were Wicklow County Council terming those houses as a Burnaby build? Our email got no reply.

We enlisted the newly-minted councillor Stephen Stokes to the cause, along with our new bestie at the Government Department Of Housing, who also wasn’t sure where the 80 Greystones houses were supposed to be.

Stokesy!

We all emailed on Thursday. No reply. On Friday, Stokes tried calling a few familiar faces in Wicklow Planning, but no one was picking up. So, we all emailed again.

And again, no reply.

Finally, on Monday, the bould Stephen was down in the Wicklow County Council offices, and managed to corner someone from the housing department as they made a quick dash to the tuck cupboard.

Turns out the 80, eh, Burnaby social houses are between Charlesland Wood and Burnaby Mill. So, yep, they are the original 41 and the slice of the 166 Part 8 application.

Wouldn’t it have been just wondering if someone, anyone, in Wicklow Housing had just let someone know that when they gave their figures to the government officials…?