Despite all the dereliction, only five properties in Balbriggan are on the derelict sites register

Many of the buildings along Bridge Street in Balbriggan are shuttered.

It is the town’s main street, and it is neglected, says independent Councillor Tony Murphy. “The presentation of your town should be the best it possibly can be here.”

Next door to a temporary pocket park sits a row of terraced houses, at numbers 6 to 12 Bridge Street, all boarded up.

Everything besides their facades has been demolished by the council, because these properties are due to be redeveloped as part of the town’s rejuvenation plan, a council spokesperson said on Tuesday.

But, despite the wider neglect on the street, these are the only five properties in Balbriggan that are on Fingal County Council’s derelict sites register.

A Fingal County Council spokesperson said that its Town Regeneration Office took over the derelict sites function in September 2023 and it commenced a review process across the county in January.

So far, in the first quarter of this year, the council has issued 70 statutory notices to property owners across the county, compared to only seven in the same period last year, said the spokesperson.

Thirty-seven of the notices issued related to properties within the Balbriggan local electoral area, said the spokesperson.

Difficult to view

On 2 May, the binder containing Fingal County Council’s derelict sites register was resting behind the desk of the County Hall on the Main Street in Swords. It was updated, it said, as of 19 April 2024.

This register is a record of any piece of land within a council’s functional area which, in the council’s opinion, could be classified as a derelict site, according to the Derelict Sites Act of 1990.

And since that law was passed, every local authority has been required to maintain their own registers.

By law, the register has to be kept at the offices of the local authority and be available for inspection.

The three other local authorities in the Dublin area – Dublin City Council, South Dublin County Council and Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council – all have pdfs on their website that list the addresses and file number for derelict sites on the register.

Fingal County Council doesn’t offer this. It only has a physical version of the register.

A member of the public can view this if they make an appointment via email, according to the council’s website.

But getting to see it can also take some time. An email to the derelict sites register email address on 8 February got an automated response but nothing more.

At the reception of County Hall on 23 February, staff behind the desk said to either make an email request or to submit a Freedom of Information request.

On 10 April, another request to the derelict sites register email address got just an automated response.

Then, a fourth request made to the council’s press office on 24 April, prompted an invitation to view the register the following week, from a staff officer in the  Economic, Enterprise, Tourism and Cultural Development Department.

Under the law, the council has to make the register available to view by the general public, which they have done, a council spokesperson said on Tuesday. “We are under no statutory obligation to make it available online.”

Out of date

There are 19 buildings, across eight sites, on Fingal County Council’s derelict sites register, as of 2 May.

Ten buildings are in Rush, two in Swords, one in Howth, one in Mulhuddart and five in Balbriggan.

Once sites are put on the register, they are subject to an annual derelict site levy of 7 percent of the market value of the site in the first year and up to 10 percent of the market value in any subsequent years, says the Fingal County Council website.

The Balbriggan entries – the DeBruns site at 6, 8, 8a, 10 and 12 Bridge Street, and the lands to the rear of these buildings – have been on the register since 4 October 2019, the file says.

The register lists the owner/occupier as one Qinsong Yan.

But Yan’s legal representative, Brendan Liddy of Hughes and Liddy Solicitors, said Yan sold the property to the council in October 2020.

The sale was closed in November 2020, he said on Monday.

After that, Fingal County Council carried out minor works to improve the look of the buildings and secure the site, according to the Our Balbriggan rejuvenation project website.

The site’s redevelopment forms part of the council’s overall plan to establish a new green corridor in the town, through Millpond Park, and up to the new park entrance at 14 Bridge Street, the site also says.

On Sunday, there were even signs of work, with heavy machinery visible behind the secured building fronts.

Why hadn’t the register been updated to reflect changes in the last three and a half years?

A council spokesperson said this is done periodically. “The updated current version is available to view at the main reception desk [in] County Hall, Swords,” they said on 7 May, but did not specify if this had been updated from five days earlier.

Room for improvement

Bridge Street is in a part of Balbriggan town centre that is an architectural conservation area, Murphy said, on Tuesday morning. “That is where there are buildings of note or properties with architectural value.”

But it is being neglected, and he points to numbers 9 and 11, a pair of rundown buildings on the opposite side of the street to the five properties on the derelict sites register.

Whether they are derelict or not would be a call made by council officials, and often, the courts. Under the Derelict Sites Act, a derelict site is any land that detracts to a material degree from the amenity, character or appearance of land in the neighbourhood.

That may be due to the structure being ruinous, neglected, unsightly, or in a dangerous or objectionable condition, according to the act.

Number 9 Bridge Street is a two-storey building, once a shop, according to Google Street View images. Green wooden boards cover its windows and front door. They are peeling and rotting away, and have been up since 2011.

It was listed as for sale by the estate agents Smith and Butler in 2017, Street View images show. But the sign has since been removed, and the estate agent did not respond when asked about its current status.

Next door, 11 Bridge Street is a four-storey building, known as the Balbriggan Constabulary Barrack, built around 1840, according to the National Built Heritage Service.

The coat of maroon paint on the walls outside the top three floors are fading.

A sign on the first floor still advertises the Norwich Irish Building Society, which was transferred to ESB in 1998, according to the Banking and Payments Federation Ireland.

On its ground floor was a dry cleaners. This is now closed, though somebody has livened up the empty exterior, decorating it with framed pictures and stuffed toys.

It’s a building of major historic significance, because in 1920, during the War of Independence, it was where two men, Seán Gibbons and Seamus Lawless, were detained by auxiliary members of the Royal Irish Constabulary, or the “Black and Tans”, Murphy says.

Gibbons and Lawless were questioned in connection with the murder of two police officers by the Irish Republican Army in 1920, and then beaten to death, Murphy says. “And this story has been told over and over again. Yet the local authorities allow that building to deteriorate.”

Fingal County Council needs to focus on rejuvenating Balbriggan’s main street, says Malachy Clarkin, a Sinn Féin local area representative and deputy chair of the Castleland Park Residents Association.

“There are enormous amounts of properties that could be turned over and used as housing on main street,” he said. “That is probably the best way of regenerating the town.”

Reviving the town’s main street is a key objective in the Our Balbriggan rejuvenation project, which mentions repurposing derelict buildings along Bridge and Drogheda Street.

Making changes

The council acknowledges that there are pockets of dereliction throughout the county, said a council spokesperson on Tuesday.

But, since Fingal’s Town Regeneration Office took over the derelict sites function in September 2023, it had commenced a review process of all local electoral areas in the county starting in January, they said.

That review led to the council’s issuing of 70 statutory notices to property owners in Fingal in the first quarter of 2024, they said.

Statutory notices are issued to advise property owners on the works that need to be done to a site, and they are also issued when a property is about to be added to the register, according to the council’s website.

Nineteen of the 37 notices issued in the first quarter of this year for buildings within the Balbriggan local electoral area were for buildings within the town itself, the spokesperson said.

And, 35 of the notices detail requirements to do works to remove dereliction, while two notices detail an intent to place a site on the register, they said.

But the council does not comment on individual cases, they said.