Developer backs building in Wicklow

Six hundred houses could be built each year using the amount of time Wicklow commuters spend travelling to Dublin, the property developer Seán Dunne told a seminar yesterday.

Mr Dunne, whose property interests include the purchase of the Jurys and Berkeley Court hotels in Dublin and the development of the Charlesland estate in Greystones, joined senior management of Wicklow County Council in the seminar promoting the "Garden County" as a place to work.

Referring to a comment by Wicklow TD and Minister for the Environment Dick Roche that one in three people living in Wicklow commuted to Dublin to work, Mr Dunne said the figures amounted to 20,000 people, spending one to two hours a day in their cars. He calculated the time in worker-hours was the equivalent of building 12 houses a week, or 600 a year.

Extolling the virtues of doing business in Wicklow, Mr Dunne said if he had an industrial base he would not hesitate to locate it in the county.

Noting that Wicklow county manager Eddie Sheehy had said rates in the county were up to 30 per cent cheaper than Dublin, he said land in the county was also significantly cheaper. Land in Sandyford, Co Dublin is making about €20 million an acre, while in Wicklow the cost was between one and three million an acre.

This was not a situation which would remain in place and he believed there would be an upward correction in the price of industrial zoned land in Wicklow.

Mr Dunne developed the Charlesland estate of some 1,500 homes on the outskirts of Greystones in conjunction with fellow property magnate Seán Mulryan.

He said Charlesland and other developments had brought another 5,000 people to live in the area. He suggested that many, if not most, of these people would prefer to work in Wicklow rather than commute.

Mr Sheehy said the council was advancing new marinas at Bray and Greystones while it was also involved in the provision of third-level facilities at Rathnew in conjunction with Carlow Institute of Technology.