Mr. Rupert Maddock:

I thank the committee for the opportunity to speak a little about Cappoquin. The town probably does not have the profile it may have had at one stage in the county and we would love to address that. It is one of the larger settlements in west Waterford and it was once an important economic and social centre. It serves a rich agricultural hinterland that required many services and on the main street there are signs of that. There are buildings that were banks and hotels and there is still some retail spaces. Many properties are now vacant. It had quite a strong engineering and light industry sector, as well as food processing. It was an important location for religious and educational institutions, and Mount Melleray and the Cistercian abbey are still there. Along with that is Cappoquin House and gardens, an important estate house that has had a long association with Cappoquin. This has resulted in a rich urban fabric, and to date over 70 buildings are listed on the national inventory of architectural heritage and 32 protected structures. It is all set within a fantastic rural landscape containing the Blackwater river, which has a very unusual bend as it turns west at Cappoquin.

The town has been marked by population decline over the course of about 150 years. The population in the mid-19th century was 2,000. It is down to approximately 700 now. Married with that, there has been an economic decline and the loss of local employment. We had the closure of Cappoquin Chickens, which many people will know about, and the Cappoquin bacon factory also closed with the loss of 200 jobs. However, the community has reacted by coming together and building a thriving community centre, the Cappoquin Community Development Company, which has many assets, including a childcare provider, a vocational education centre and a sports hall. It is also an umbrella group for other community companies. The town still has a primary school, which is active, whereas the two secondary schools have closed. The exception in Cappoquin is that there is a lot of rental accommodation. There is a desire to see more people living in the town, particularly families.

We found many causes of vacancy. It is primarily caused by a loss of jobs, wealth and capital. This has resulted in buildings not being maintained for a protracted period. There has, therefore, been no improvement and this creates a vicious cycle in which it becomes more and more expensive to try to bring them back up to a habitable condition. These buildings are unsuitable for modern living. As mentioned earlier, the cost of refurbishment, that is, the soft costs of design, meeting building regulations, planning requirements, certification and so forth, added to the construction costs makes it uneconomic in terms of the final value of the building. As such, there would be a negative return on investment.

We found there are many personal reasons for individual owners and properties not coming into the market. The market in Cappoquin is not functioning. There are very few properties coming to the market. We discovered there is a vacancy rate of approximately 17% in Cappoquin. It is much higher in the core of the town, at 40%, which compares with a county average of between 10% and 11%.

In terms of our approach to the project, we have included a number of phases. In the start-up phase we collaborated with local stakeholders, including the community group I mentioned. We have a philanthropic trust, Tomar Trust, which has committed to matching any public funding on a one to three basis. We have the Waterford Leader Partnership. As part of the start-up, we also assembled a design team to look intensively at some of the physical problems in the town.

We then engaged in a research and analysis stage. A company, Prescience, was commissioned to produce a report on vacancy in the town. The community company did an intensive survey of 500 properties in the town and we established a baseline of vacancy and dereliction. We found that out of 505 properties, 108 are vacant or derelict. Based on this, we looked at suitable sites for further investigation. We established two or three sites but finally agreed, as outlined in red on the screen, on one particular block that had a very high vacancy rate, at 40%, and a great deal of dereliction. It was in the heart of the town and we believed that aspects of it were challenging and would merit further investigation. We then put a design team to work. Our aspiration was always to try to develop principles that had broader application and a transferable model. We did an inspection of the buildings and started to examine the constraints that would apply.

In terms of the next phase, once we had some designs we looked at delivery models. We considered the idea of having a long-term horizon and a plan. We have developed a pipeline of projects in Tramore that would have, say, a 20-year horizon. In this case, in Cappoquin, we started to look at that, essentially looking at how it could connect with the natural hinterland. We also looked at active recreation because we need to bring new activities and a new purpose to Cappoquin.

The next phase was to look at the built environment and the public realm, with the long-term aim of trying to bring people back into Cappoquin to live in the town. We looked at some models of setting up a local regeneration entity that would simply focus on looking at regeneration projects. That would have local knowledge and could then look for clients. It would have knowledge of nitty-gritty areas such as title issues.

We looked at the concept of assembling properties. That is a major issue because many properties would have serious constraints. We would need to create proper and saleable properties to be assembled into something that is bigger. We looked at the idea of a rolling scheme whereby, as properties could be done up, that could feed into a pipeline of new projects, and that could be adaptable. We looked at efficient delivery models and value engineering to try to reduce costs on the supply side. We approached the local credit union and an estate agent to try to evaluate what the market would be and find a price point for properties if we were to try to sell them. As mentioned, we also needed to find the affordability gap between the price point the market would bear when a property was being sold and the cost of acquiring, designing, constructing and bringing the property up to standard. We had to identify what might be needed to address the affordability gap, in other words, what type of incentive or support scheme would be needed, whether on the tax side or the supply side, for example, something similar to the affordable housing model. In our phasing, we were very keen on doing a pilot to test the proposition. The community group have been looking to acquire a site to try to test that out.

The slide on the screen shows the block we chose. Members will see it is a very tight urban block. What should be noted is that, over time, people have filled in the gap, the interstices, between the streets because the houses were inadequate in terms of their internal layout.

There is a slide missing but on the next slide members will see that there are typical constraints within those blocks, with the sites being very narrow and the layout unsuitable. The standard of the property was very poor. The aspect and the way it addressed the sun was poor and the gardens were in poor condition. The overall area was too low for modern needs and for family living.

In terms of what our architects came up with to address that, we have amalgamated properties to make something that is more suitable. Our estate agent told us that we need an area of 1,300, 1,400 or 1,500 sq. ft to attract families. We also needed some sort of hook. Our hook was that we provided a space attached to the property which has a flexible use. It could be used as a workshop, summer rental or garage. It is a space that could be used as a studio or for some kind of income generation. Members can see from the section on the drawing that what we have now is a property that has space, light, flexible living and is highly insulated, warm and suitable for modern living, with a suitable open space.

The other point about this model is that we tried to deal with the different typologies in the block so that one or two designs could be applicable across the block. That reduces the soft costs. It also allows flexibility in delivery so that one, three or, in the most ambitious case, the entire block could be altered and brought up to a high standard. That is the position.