Councillor Elena Secas has called on Limerick City and County Council to address what she calls the “lack of community services and lack of infrastructure in the Castletroy area” that are “not keeping up with the housing development that’s in the area” in a motion submitted to the council on Monday.
There have been 6,151 units built in Limerick since 2016, with 2,178 of those in Limerick City East according to the CSO.
Speaking to Limerick Voice, Cllr Secas criticised the speed of the area’s development:
“We are building communities, but we’re not building sustainable communities, and we need some kind of urgent commitment that this imbalance will be addressed and that the necessary infrastructure, community services and facilities will be provided to reflect the scale of development in the area.”
“This is a significant population increase, but despite that, there has been no corresponding investment either in infrastructure or community facilities” she said. “Traffic is chaos and public transport is most of the time unreliable because of that. We haven’t really developed new roads to cater for that increase in population.”
She also notes that “schools are oversubscribed. There’s no community centre, there’s no youth centre, no Garda station, so there is a huge imbalance in the area, and this has a detrimental impact on the local residents, and it’s affecting their quality of life.”
Limerick City and County Council point out the Limerick Development Plan 2022 in response to the motion, stating the plan “sets out that it is the objective of Limerick City and County Council to promote development that incorporates a high quality, sustainable and inclusive approach to developments in the suburbs of Limerick City, including Castletroy.”
“The Council executive works collaboratively across all Directorates to support this objective including working with other agencies and identifying potential funding opportunities to further enhance the city suburbs.”