NAVAN DERELICTION: 'There are parts of town that just look miserable'

Vacant and derelict buildings are causing major problems throughout Navan, with 13 vacant premises on a 65 yard stretch on Flower Hill alone, and another fourteen vacant businesses right in the centre of the town.

Fears that vacant sites attract anti social behaviour and discourage business in the town have been expressed for years, but the growing number of vacant houses and businesses has sparked renewed efforts to deal with the problem.

Cllr Joe Reilly has called for a task force to deal with the issue of dereliction and vacant properties in the town.
He is encouraging the County Council to buy up some of the properties for social housing, but acknowledges there is a major task ahead to deal with the problem of vacant and derelict sites in the town.
“There are 13 houses vacant on one 65-yard stretch on Flower Hill alone - that is not good for any area,” he says.
“There are several vacant sites on Market Square, Cornmarket, Bakery Lane and right across the town.”

Some months ago, Cllr Reilly proposed that a task force be set up with an indepenent chairman that would consist of representatives of the county council, auctioneers, banks, property owners and planners,
“The aim is to work out how the sites can be developed,” he said.
“We need to make a register of all vacant sites. You cannot have a large part of the centre of the town vacant. These buildings and sites need to be upgraded and brought back into use.
“There are parts of the town that just look miserable.
“The junior members of the Meath Arts group have done a wonderful job painting vacant premises, but you cannot really disguise an empty building.
“We cannot have the whole centre of the town looking derelict when we have the opportunity now to upgrade the town centre and put it back into use.”

Cllr Reilly wants a register of derelict sites to be drawn up as part of the county development plan.
“To the best of my knowledge nothing is happening with the houses on Flower Hill. I am urging the council to look at the possibility of buying them for social housing sites.”
He believes a number of other vacant sites around the town may have been bought up recently and he hopes to see those re-opened.
Meath County Council director of services, Kevin Stewart said the first priority was to map all the vacant premises in the town so that they know who owns them and their planning history, to work out case by case how to deal with them.

He acknowledged Cllr Reilly's calls for auctioneers, state agencies, banks and auctioneers getting together to solve the issue.
He said new legislation was coming in which would allow local authorities manage vacant sites.
He explained that they can take action against the owners of the sites, but it was better to work with them to get the premises back in use.
He pointed out that there are 14 unused buildings in the general Market Square/town centre area. “We have to see how we can regenerate and reuse them.”

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“We are spending a lot of money enhancing the centre of Navan and we need to get vacant premises back into use.
“We are encouraging the use of brownfield sites
“We have to look at all the vacant and derelict properties and see if there is an opportunity to build houses in the town or maybe see how we could combine sites.”

Mr Stewart said they needed to deal with the issue positively to tie in with other developments in the town over the next few years.