First tenants of new social houses in Arcadia 'to be given keys this week'

The first tenants are expected to be given the keys to their homes in a new €6 million social housing development in Arcadia, Athlone, this week.

The town's Mayor, councillor Aengus O'Rourke, said it was his understanding that letters had just been issued to the first of the tenants for the new development, telling them they can come and collect their keys later this week.

He said the finalising and 'snagging' of certain issues in the 21 completed units was still being carried out, so he expects finished houses to be occupied gradually over the next four to five weeks.

The 21 new homes in Arcadia represent the first tranche of the 33-strong 'Gortnadreas' social housing scheme (pictured above).

While describing the allocation of the new homes as a "huge positive" for the tenants, Cllr O'Rourke was critical of how long it had taken to reach this stage.

"It will bring important movement in the housing area, because really there has been no significant movement, other than one house here and one house there. Now we see a significant number (of new units) which, in turn, will free up other accommodation types.

"That will bring a little bit of fluidity to (housing locally) but it's also a case study in how not to provide social housing, at the same time.

"Almost five years to the month when we were first presented with the idea (for the Arcadia development), we are handing out the keys. And yet a project like Center Parcs in Ballymahon has delivered 500 luxurious cabins in the space of two and a half years."

The Fianna Fáil representative said he hoped there would be a new Government, and a new Housing Minister from his party, to bring fresh ideas to the housing crisis.

"I think we need to try completely different approaches now. We need to start building public houses on public land - council houses on council land. That needs to be how it's done. We have plenty of (land) here in Westmeath and we need to be properly funded.

"All of these obstacles that are put in the way of local authorities - that they need to check in with the Department seven or eight times before they get approval to proceed with a scheme - are just ridiculous. And Arcadia is a case in point.

"I would hope that with a new Minister we get new vigour, new energy, new ideas and certainly from Athlone's perspective I'd be feeding into that Minister as best I can in terms of the kind of emergency we have here.

"It's not just families, and it's not just single mothers. We have a lot of single men that really don't feature when it comes to the provision and the allocation of social housing. We have a lot of older folk who are years and years waiting for proper ground floor accommodation that's just not there.

"On so many levels, we're not performing as we should in terms of the provision of social housing. That needs to change."

The Westmeath Independent contacted Westmeath County Council to seek details of the new social housing allocations but at the time of writing we had not received a response.

Cllr John Dolan pointed out recently that the 21 units in Arcadia were the first local authority homes to be built in Athlone in more than a decade.

Some 24 social housing units are understood to have been completed for a separate development at The Orchard in Cornamaddy.

An initial allocation of eight of the new units was previously made at The Orchard and Cllr O'Rourke said he believed that a second round of housing allocations was due to be made there this week.