As an anti-immigrant encampment dwindles on Basin View, its organisers try to rally
One man who’s been involved has been trying to organise a social event on a nearby council football pitch, something the council says it’s “monitoring”.
The 18th-century mansion in the north inner-city has been vacant for more than two decades.
Slievecourt DAC got planning permission in 2019 for a 9-storey office building – and another one in August this year.
Locals and councillors say they’ll be watching to see whether a farmers’ market will work here – but that, long-term, they’d rather see the derelict site built out.
Locals query whether Dublin City Council is capable of tackling dereliction even in buildings that it owns.
“At the moment you are just dealing with fake pharmacy windows and fake clothes shops,” says Labour Councillor Darragh Moriarty. “It’s hugely frustrating.
The Courts Service, their owner, says it is renovating the buildings. Says Green Party MEP Ciarán Cuffe: “Heads should roll over these things.”
In 2019, Dublin City Council quietly dropped 38 and 39 Bolton Street from its reports on plans for social housing.
For at least a decade, the site that had the black and yellow “Somebody’s Child” mural lay vacant, rotting. As of last year though, the council owns it – and says it has plans for it.
The owners have a plan to redevelop the site, and wanted to demolish the two houses, but the council told them they couldn’t.
The appearance of the building and surrounding site are bringing down the area, some councillors say. A representative of the owners says they’ve tried to maintain it.
First the newspapers moved out, then there was a plan for homes and a hotel. These days, it’s just sitting there empty – but it’s not on the vacant sites register.
On the ground floor, below planned housing, should there be shops, a community centre, or something else?