Aftershock Ghost Land (last chance to see it)

Sponge Bob

RTE Player only has it for 2 days ending sometime today sunday. This program is sobering, to say the least. It is a sweep through the vast and empty ghost estates that are everywhere but particularly in the midlands.

http://www.rte.ie/player/#v=1072693

Funkstard

Just watched it there. Talk about bleak viewing.

DWCommuter

Seen it on first screening. Not very shocking for me as Kildare is full of them.

Sponge Bob

DWCommuter wrote: »

Seen it on first screening. Not very shocking for me as Kildare is full of them.

300,000 empty and another 60,000 holiday homes. The best part of 20% of the nation housing stock is hardly used or else it is empty.

123easy

Just watched it there. Its bleak.

I have to say I despised that gloating academic lecturer twat who did he think he was?

Chris_5339762

They should at least put aside a bit of money (couple of million) to neaten up the estates that are half finished and that have people living in them. Or pass a law saying that developers who arent bankrupt have to neaten things up. Like remove all the wrecked construction kit and pipes.

BluntGuy

Sponge Bob wrote: »

RTE Player only has it for 2 days ending sometime today sunday. This program is sobering, to say the least. It is a sweep through the vast and empty ghost estates that are everywhere but particularly in the midlands.

http://www.rte.ie/player/#v=1072693

Bit off-topic, but do you know any way of downloading this clip?

danbohan

123easy wrote: »

Just watched it there. Its bleak.

I have to say I despised that gloating academic lecturer twat who did he think he was?

yea , think hes the Irish based version of the whinging pom

Sponge Bob

Now gone. Best lock the thread. Unless they repeat it which I hear is unlikely.

€45 Billion spent on building empty houses in this past decade and we cannot even see the ****ing TV show

DWCommuter

Sponge Bob wrote: »

Now gone. Best lock the thread. Unless they repeat it which I hear is unlikely.

€45 Billion spent on building empty houses in this past decade and we cannot even see the ****ing TV show

Thats what we call bureaucracy. (make the programme, but fail to identify its ongoing importance)

RTE is no different to any GOV Dept.

D.L.R.

its on youtube now

http://www.youtube.com/user/tirnanog33#p/u/4/9OP8QYWjh-k

SeanW

DWCommuter wrote: »

Seen it on first screening. Not very shocking for me as Kildare is full of them.

Ditto here in Longford. Totally insane. I saw only part of it IIRC but they focused on the Silver Birches estate. Though I personally am not familiar with it, it's just one of many. Not too far from me is a development on an historical estate called Carriglass, from what I recall it started out as self catering holiday accomodation, somewhere along the line they added a hotel, a top-class golf course with underground heating throughout, and in the final years an indeterminate amount of housting estates were added, down back roads miles from the nearest town (Longford). There were problems throughout with (at minimum) sub contractors not being paid.

All told the whole thing is the size of a small town and none of it is in use! Most of it was never finished. I don't think there's anyone actually living in it which is probably the only positive thing I can say about it. If anyone needs evidence that we as a people lost our collective minds, come out to Carriglass and see the proof for yourself. "Total madness" is the only description that comes to mind.

Sponge Bob

SeanW wrote: »

a top-class golf course with underground heating throughout,

I saw another one of these 'top class' golf resort places just west of Clonmel last year in a place called Marlfield although they only started it before the work stopped.

BluntGuy

What bothers me even more about the sprawling empty mess of houses and glass office blocks we have dotting the country is that the government have no plans to even TRY and salvage something constructive from this disaster.

The "plan" seems to be to keep property prices artificially high and hope the market returns for cardboard houses in the middle of no-where.

Bluetonic

D.L.R. wrote: »

its on youtube now

http://www.youtube.com/user/tirnanog33#p/u/4/9OP8QYWjh-k

There only appears to be 10 minutes of it up (5 parts * 2 mins).

Anyone locate the rest?

Nuttzz

available until may 30th now

ForiegnNational

From watching this last night, I found the two things that stood out most were:

1. How planning permission could have been granted for large estates with NO requirement for integrated services such as sewerage to be included. Even the provision of payments to the council to build the overall infrastructure seem not to have occurred. Courtmacsherry in Cork is an example, dozens of new houses built by Fleming, but the raw sewage is flowing out into the harbor in direct convention of the European Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive.

This one is going to be unpopular/controversial, but I will put it out there as a discussion topic:

2. People seem unable to help themselves. "This was supposed to be a green/playground/etc" was a common refrain. Fair enough it should have been, but people don't seem to be able to do the simple things such as tidying up communal areas so that it is safe for kids. I thought it was only in the UK that community spirit had died, but from the outcome of the programme, people were happy to complain, but in the three years since the bust, don't seem to have lifted a finger to help the overall community.

Are there laws prohibiting residents in estates from clearing debris / building materials into a safe location or making safe vacant properties by boarding them up if the developer is unwilling or unable to do this on their behalf?

Hell even send the bill to the developer for the remedial works. At least you would then be a creditor when the company is eventually wound up!