BY CONOR SHARKEY
SPRINGHILL Community Centre has called on the Housing Executive to hand a number of derelict properties in the area, instead of selling them off privately.
Three properties, which have repeatedly been plagued by vandals, were recently placed on the housing market.
In a bid to retain the properties as social housing, Springhill Community Centre put in a bid of £5,000 per house. If their bid had been successful, the group said, the houses would have been leased out and the money generated pumped back into the community.
Unfortunately for the community project the bid was rejected, and now they fear that the dilapidated buildings could remain in their current state for another ten years.
Springhill Community spokesperson Paul Gallagher explained: "We offered to buy the properties for the nominal fee of £5,000 each. We then planned to rent them back out as social housing, with responsibility for management and maintenance going to us. Any money made from the rent would have been channelled back into the community group.
"The situation as it stands is that there are no guarantees that whoever buys them will do them up at all. An investor could come in and purchase them, but because of the recent downturn in house prices here, they could decide to leave them until the market is more buoyant. That could be in five years time, ten years time, who knows?
"What the Housing Executive should be telling the buyer is that they must have them back in housing stock within six months.
"We as a community group can't compete with the current asking price, but we do want to see these houses done up and being lived in.
"If the Executive can't get them sold or they can't get the guarantee they will be done up, give them to us and we will make positive use of them," he said.
Responding to Mr Gallagher's concerns, the Housing Executive's District Manager Seamus Kelly said they had not placed any conditions on the vacant properties as it could limit the market.
He added however that they would be working closely with the purchaser to ensure the properties are brought back into use as quickly as possible.
