Dr. Philip Crowe:

If we reframe vacancy not as a problem but as adaptive capacity of our towns to address societal challenges such as housing and carbon targets but also the revitalisation of towns, we can start to build up a map of the adaptive capacity of the town. The scale issue was brought up. Instead of constantly talking of individual buildings, which we have done today, and going building by building, we start to look at urban blocks, co-ordination and the heritage that is the urban morphology. That is a key part of the town. If we start trying to co-ordinate at that level, we can start to find solutions.

Many of the solutions for these complex buildings are to do with a lack of co-ordination, a dispute over the title or a difficulty getting a fire cert part B or a part M. Through co-ordination and working together, many of these problems can be solved. A lot of people in towns say they do not want to live in the town centre because they would not have a front or back garden or anywhere to store their bins. An awful lot of these things could be solved if you actually sat down and got people together.

There is a concrete example I worked on with Gráinne Shaffrey, Paddy Shaffrey's daughter, a number of years ago in Castleblayney. Ms Shaffrey is still working on it and there were property clinics to learn why the buildings were vacant. There were really complex stories and very complex buildings. There are lots of buildings behind the buildings, so the potential is huge for these back lands and co-ordinating to get compact urban growth. In Castleblayney, Monaghan County Council with a town team, as was mentioned, has worked together to look at these clusters and see how they can develop this in a co-ordinated fashion. Suddenly, you get big numbers and the heritage is retained.

To use Castleblayney as an example, these are often little lanes. You preserve those and use them as connections to the back lands and to more housing. Therefore, the urban heritage is as important as the individual buildings and we have a chance of doing something big through co-ordination.