Failed PPP scheme completed for west Dublin tenants

A social housing development, left an abandoned “shell” for more than five years, has been completed and opened to tenants in west Dublin.

Grand Canal View in Bluebell, just to the west of Inchicore, was to have been built as a public private partnership (PPP) by Patrick Brock & Sons for Dublin City Council.

Planning permission was granted for the development of 16 apartments, three houses and a large community centre in 2005. Work did get underway but had stalled by 2009 leaving the community centre 80 per cent complete, but the only the basic structure or shell of the housing erected. The company went into liquidation in 2010.

The council undertook the remaining work on the €5.6million community facility which was completed in June 2011, but it did not have the funds to build the housing, which stood as a unfinished or “ghost estate” right on the banks of the canal.

Capital funding of €3 million from the Department of the Environment allowed work to restart on the housing in January last year and the apartments, all of which have two bedrooms, and the three-bedroom houses, were finished in January this year.

Although smaller than many of the other PPP social housing schemes to have collapsed during the property crash, the complex is significant in that it is one of the few failed PPPs developments to be completed, and unlike other recent social housing schemes, it will remain owned and managed by the city council, rather than a voluntary housing body.

"The completion of this development, which has been finished to the highest standards of facilities and energy conservation, shows that Dublin City Council is more than capable of developing, building and managing complexes," Lord Mayor of Dublin Christy Burke said.

The homes have been built to significantly high standards than required under national building regulations. All of the apartments are dual aspect, with views of the canal and the Dublin mountains, while some have window on three sides.

The apartments are 74sq m or 82sq m and the three bed houses are 113sqm. Photovoltaic panels have been installed in the complex which are expected to generate one quarter of the energy needs of the tenants.