Affordable housing scheme will be built in Tipperary's largest town

It’s not expected that there will be any difficulty in securing funding for a scheme of affordable houses in Clonmel, a meeting of Clonmel Borough District has been told.

Shane Grogan, housing administrative officer with Tipperary County Council, told the meeting that these houses were aimed at people who didn’t qualify for social housing, and who didn’t meet the income threshold to secure a mortgage.

The council was in the process of preparing its application for funding that would be sent to the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, as well as the housing agencies.

The council is eager to offer a quality service because they would be dealing with people who were making the most important purchase of their lives, said Mr Grogan.

The council was focusing on Clonmel first because it was the most likely to achieve success.

In the next few weeks the council hoped to have a ready reckoner on its website for those interested in the affordable housing scheme, whether you were a developer or a first-time buyer.

When the scheme went live they would be encouraging as many people as possible who qualified to apply. Houses would be valued by an auctioneer and discounts of up to fifty percent per unit would be available, he added.

The announcement of the scheme was welcomed by the council members, including Cllr John FitzGerald, who said it dealt with a sector of the market that found it very hard to get on the property ladder.

Cllr Siobhán Ambrose said she knew teachers, nurses and people in second relationships who couldn’t get on the property ladder.

Cllr Pat English said that an affordable housing scheme was something that needed to be done and it should have happened years ago.

It wasn’t a new invention, and was something that Clonmel Corporation did back in the 1970s.