Mr. Tom Shanahan:

I thank the Chairman and the members for the opportunity to present to them today. Banagher is a historic town located on the banks of the River Shannon in west Offaly with a population of 1,760 based on the 2016 census. Two cruiser hire companies operate from the marina, which is located on the edge of the town centre, so many people begin and end their cruise of the Shannon in Banagher. One of the objectives of the community involves trying to get these people to spend some time in Banagher. A primary school and secondary school together with the amenity of the Shannon and other services, including an open library, are located in or adjacent to the town centre making it potentially a very good town to live in with all services within easy access. However, significant residential and commercial vacancies exist within the town centre.

The primary focus of this project was to investigate the reason for residential vacancy in particular and how it could be reversed. The study focused on the town centre. Among other things, we engaged in extensive consultation with the community and individual property owners. We began with a survey to determine how much of the property in the town centre was vacant. While there are 156 properties in the study area, we determined that more than 22 of these properties were vacant. The community was very enthusiastic about the project and helped to find the owners. The community helped to develop its town plan identifying the public realm and items that need addressing in the town. Of the 22 properties that were vacant, we engaged with the owners of 16 of these properties to find out the reasons for the vacancy and what might motivate the owners to bring the properties back into use. The reasons were predominantly financial and to a large extent, that revolved around technical issues as well. On average, these properties were vacant for about eight years. This varied from quite a long-term vacancy to a relatively recent one. Many owners found the cost of refurbishment and modernisation, which has already been mentioned, to be prohibitive notwithstanding that the reason they became vacant in the first place may not have been financial. This is complicated by the fact that the value of the properties are very low. When one looked at the cost of buying such a property in the town centre with the cost of refurbishment and modernisation, one could see that it was much more expensive than buying a comparable property outside the town. Of all the people we spoke to, none was prepared to take up the repair and leasing scheme for public housing as they felt it would not be viable for them or their properties.

Essentially, all the property owners required an incentive to consider spending money on the properties and bringing them back into use. Among the things we did was to engage one property owner to look at options for refurbishing a vacant unit; these are now in a detailed design process, which is visible on screen. The unit was a shop with living accommodation and access to a large rear garden through an arch. The design, which was done by our own in-house architect, demonstrated how a modern spacious family home could be created from a streetside property. That said, the owner still considers it too expensive to move on with the project at this stage. Nonetheless it showed that the particular reason for this was to demonstrate that a modern spacious property could be created from these vacant units. Another vacant unit in the town centre was a multi-unit commercial premises that is for sale. We are negotiating the purchase of that premises and hope to progress that project, which will convert it into a remote working unit with office space and possibly community facilities. It could also allow us to extend our own library, which is adjacent, into it. At an early stage in the project, we are fortuitous in that we worked with an approved housing body to bring a 14-unit vacant development into use that is now tenanted. We work with the community to see if we can develop a model to investigate if another unit with ten accommodation units could be purchased to provide a community-operated tourist accommodation facility. Again, this is to try to address the fact that many tourists come to Banagher for Shannon cruises but we do not necessarily get them to stay there.

Essentially, the outcomes of this project have very much focused on what would motivate people to bring their vacant units into use again. The big issues, as outlined here, are the cost and technical factors involved in bringing these units up to a standard that is fit for purpose for rental, sale or living in. We feel that the financial incentives should be targeted at a designated town centre area to ensure the focus of these incentives is very much on bringing life back into the town centres. We have further plans for the public realm to avail of the current funding streams. We will continue the example used where we looked at the design of a vacant unit to bring it into use as a modern home. We have a number of other units where we will engage with the owners in a similar exercise with possibly a less ambitious design to, again, demonstrate the options regarding how people can bring these properties back into use.