A major conference in relation to derelict buildings in Donegal will be held in Letterkenny next week.
The event, which was first held last year, is being organised by the Cathedral Quarter group in conjunction with Letterkenny Tidy Towns and will be held in the Station House Hotel on Friday.
One of the organisers, Donnan Harvey, explained that the estimated 100,000 derelict properties nationally does not include holiday homes in counties like Donegal.
“So, the reality is, there could be a lot more potential homes out there,” he said.
Whilst not ignoring the big picture nationally, Mr Harvey said this conference will focus on the situation in Donegal.
“Anyone who has travelled around the county will hardly have failed to notice the huge number of abandoned houses,” he said.
“The irony here is that while recent figures suggest that there are almost 8,000 vacant homes in Donegal – about ten percent of our overall housing stock – there were, at the end of last year, close on three thousand families on the waiting list for housing.”
The organisers also want to highlight the fact that Letterkenny’s Lower Main Street is blighted by dereliction.
To give a bit of background to the problems of dereliction, local Historian Kieran Kelly will give a tour of Lower Main Street on the Thursday evening, outlining the rich history of this part of Letterkenny. It starts at Market Square at 7pm and will finish at the Station House.
The conference proper gets underway on Friday with registration at 9.30am.
There will be a welcoming to the delegates by Letterkenny Mayor, Mr., Mr. Kevin Bradley at 10am before it will officially be opened by Green Party chairperson and Senator, Pauline O’Reilly.
The first part of the conference is looking at dereliction in Donegal and Northern Ireland and leading the debate will be Patricia McIntyre, Donegal County Council Town Regeneration Officer. Also participating will be Charlie Fisher from the Northern Ireland Development Trust.
One of Ireland’s best known housing experts, Rory Hearne, from Maynooth University, will take centre stage in the second part when the theme will be: Dereliction -What Next?
Other speakers here will include Ali Harvey from the Heritage Council and Tom Gilligan from Mayo County Council.
“Housing, homelessness, the huge cost of mortgages, exploitative rents are now regularly topping our news bulletins,” Mr Harvey added.
“It’s crazy that this is so, because we have much of the solution to it all staring us in the face. There are houses lying vacant all around us. Not all of them will be suitable to be reformed into homes, but many of them could be.”
Tickets for the event cost €25 and includes lunch. To book for the conference go to: https://www.eventbrite.ie/e/derelict-in-donegal-and-beyond-conference-tickets-670811012797
Tags:
