By Noel O’Driscoll
HOPES that the new year would see work starting to complete the Coneyboro estate in Athy have been dashed and the residents face into 2012 living in the unfinished estate with all the problems that entails.
The developers have failed to sign an agreement with Kildare Co Council, Athy Town Council, NAMA and the banks which would have resolved ongoing problems. Funding was being made available from the Department of the Environment, but that is now in jeopardy.
The deadline to access the funds has passed and there is little hope among the residents that the work will go ahead in the near future.
There is major subsidence in the roads in the estate, green areas remain unfinished and there are a number of unfinished houses which have been vandalised and stripped.
The stress has taken its toll on the residents and even the residents' association has now been disbanded.
Resident Ian Preston was involved in the now disbanded Coneyboro Residents' Association.
“I can’t see the work being done in the next year. Our hopes have been dashed yet again and at this stage I am expecting any day now to hear of the first fatality in the estate. There are holes in the road here big enough to bury a wheelie bin in.
“We thought this was it and that this agreement would see the estate fixed up and it would be out of the developers’ hands for once and for all. However the developers seem to have turned their nose up at this and refused to sign.”
A number of developers were involved in the construction of Coneyboro and Mr Preston says that it may now be time to take the fight directly to the developers' own doors.
“We know who some of the developers are and where they live, maybe now it's time that their neighbours got to see who they are living next door to and we have to consider picketing the homes of the developers.
“I will only believe this work is going to be done when I see the diggers arrive into the estate.