NAAS, 18 July 2002: by Brian Byrne. Kildare County Council 'would need the United Nations' to police developers in the county, the council's assistant manager told Naas town councillors on Tuesday night. Tommy Skehan was defending his planning and compliance departments in a debate on a Naas development plagued with drainage and sewerage problems since it was built 15 years ago.
Meanwhile, the developer of Arconagh Estate (above) has been given two months by local councillors to see if the automation of two pumps will solve a chronic sewerage overflow problem.
Cllr Eibhlin Bracken had demanded by motion that the developer’s bond be called in and outstanding drainage and sewerage work be completed by Naas Town Council. After a robust discussion at last Tuesday’s meeting of the council, she agreed to her motion being deferred until September, when the town engineer asked for more ‘test time’ for the refurbished pumps.
But there was serious criticism of the developer, John Connolly, over the fact that problems have been allowed to fester for the full 15 years since the estate was built. Sewerage has regularly overflowed onto paths and roadways, and there is an ongoing drainage problem on the green area of the estate.
Cllr Pat O’Reilly said it was an ‘appalling’ situation and that the council should ‘go down the legal road’ to make the developer fix the problems, which have been regularly highlighted over many years and were recently the subject of a deputation by residents to the Town Council.
“Let’s send out the signal loud and clear that we’re no longer going to put up with it,” he said. “This is a health and safety matter for the community.”
Cllr Anthony Egan said a that a message should go out from Naas Town Council to developers that they would have to ‘get their house in order’ before they came back to the council looking for further planning permissions. He also wondered if the pumps were the only problem in Arconagh, and if perhaps there was a basic piping problem underneath it all.
Kildare County Council’s planning and enforcement procedures which allowed such problems were slammed by Cllr Charlie Byrne. “It’s a poor reflection on them,” he said, adding that he was no longer prepared to accept excuses of ‘staff shortages’ for a lack of policing of developers.
“I’m damn sure that if a private individual wants to build a septic tank he’ll have plenty of people coming out from the council to see what he’s doing,” he said. “We shouldn’t even be blaming the builders. If we don’t use the strong hand from the beginning, there’s no point in raising it now.”
His remarks drew an aggrieved defence of Kildare County Council by town manager and assistant county manager Tommy Skehan, who said they couldn’t police the developers even if the council had ‘the Irish Army and the gardai’ to help them do it. “We’d need the United Nations to police them,” he said. He added that the council 'has now set up structures' for compliance and development control, but he said that 'choices have to be made' as to what available staff are assigned to do.
Cllr Willie Callaghan queried whether it was right that pumps which were already 15 years old should simply be made automatic, and asked that the cost of new pumps should be investigated.
Town engineer John McGowan told the meeting that the developer had taken consultants’ advice on the problem and the automation of the pumps had recently been implemented. He explained that in the past, if the sewerage level in the holding talks rose above a certain level, a second pump needed to be switched on manually, and failure to do this had occasionally resulted in sewerage overflow.
A number of councillors expressed their astonishment that in this day and age, a sewerage system in a Naas estate would require to be managed manually.
They also heard that the green area needed to be completely stripped back and the compacted earth underneath be replaced. Engineer McGowan said the developer’s bond was 90,000 euros, and he wasn’t convinced that a quote obtained by residents of 25,000 euros for this particular job was adequate.
Town manager Tommy Skehan also told the meeting that any taking in charge of the estate could only come after a formal request from the developer, and no such request has been received.
