Bray Town Council to Demolish Property they purchased for €6.1 Million

Sinn Féin councillor John Brady has expressed concerns and said
serious questions needed to be answered following confirmation by Bray
Town Council that they are to demolish Kilbride House on Kilbride Lane
in Bray. The house makes up part of a site that the council purchased
using a compulsory purchase order a number of years ago and paid
€6.1million for. It was intended on using the site to construct badly
need social housing, however the Government is refusing to provide any
funding for this purpose.

Cllr Brady said "The Town Manager confirmed at Tuesdays council
meeting that he intends on demolishing Kilbride House on Kilbride
Lane. I am bitterly disappointed at this decision because this site
was purchased at the height of the so called 'Celtic Tiger' and the
council paid an incredible €6.1 million for. The land around the house
was always intended for the construction of housing, unfortunately the
government is now refusing to allow the construction of any new social
housing under their new housing policies"

Cllr Brady continued "Since this property was purchased it has lay in
a state of dereliction, a caretaker had been residing in the main
house but a number of months ago he moved out of the area. The
property has since lay empty and open for anti-social behaviour. I
recently had the council secure the property by placing shutters on
the windows and doors in an attempt to curtail the anti social
behaviour and to try stop the house getting ransacked and burnt to the
ground"

"The Town Manager has now decided to demolish the property, i have
major concerns about this. The over priced site was purchased for €6.1
million and was valued based on the existence of the house on the
site, which going on the value of property at the time was probably
valued at over €1.5million. It is unbelievable that the council now
wants to demolish something they paid so much for rather than to deal
with the real problem"

Cllr Brady went onto say "I have argued that yes we need to stop the
problems on site and the way to do that would be by giving the house
to a community group on a short term lease so the property would be
occupied which would stop any anti social issues. The council have
tried to justify the demolition of the house by saying the house is in
a poor state of repair, i totally disagree with this as i was recently
in the property and yes some small works may be needed but certainly
nothing that would warrant its destruction. I think at this stage the
files on this particular purchase by the council need to be opened so
we can see how the figure of €6.1 million was arrived at and what
value was placed on the house itself."

Brady concluded "Demolishing this property is the easy option by the
council and amounts to little more than the squandering of tax payers
money. There are more constructive things that should and could be
done with this property whilst we are waiting for a reversal of the
flawed housing policies of this Government. Turning the site into a
€6.1 million wasteland will only lead to more problems for local
residents and will amount to a total and utter waste of taxpayers
money."