Battery Court, a Section 23 development outside Longford town, promised 'a new standard of luxury living' but has been left unfinished

Rows of grey concrete shells stand stark and silent among the puddles in this muddy field. The brochure for Battery Court, a Section 23 designated scheme of apartments, duplexes and houses outside Longford town, promised homes "setting a new standard of luxury living". There are 'sold' banners plastered on the windows of two of the completed houses facing grim terraces of unfinished buildings, though the only one seemingly inhabited is the showhouse. But no one answers our knock on the door. The mobile number on the sign from developers, the Grealy Group, also rings out unanswered. There are no cars. A digger sits abandoned behind a wire screen. The entire estate seems deserted, all adding to the eerie silence. Wires dangle from ceilings in those houses that have a roof, meeting the weeds growing up through cracks in the floor. The 'playground' is defined by mounds of rubble and littered with lengths of pipe and planks with protruding nails. Those are the dangers visible at a glance, but others lurk unseen behind the gaping holes where doors and windows should be. If ghostly by day, the place becomes more sinister after dark. The absence of street lighting alone – one of the conditions of original planning permission – offers a breeding ground for anti-social behaviour. And rats.


"Longford is one of the smallest counties, but has the highest amount of unfinished developments," says local independent councillor Mark Casey. "The big question you would have to ask is, 'Why did developers get planning for all of these houses that were never needed?' It beggars belief that you have developments built where there is no infrastructure to support them, no lighting, not even footpaths. If you were to give a house here away for free now, I don't think anyone would take it."


It's not just Longford that suffers from clusters of un-sold, and often unfinished housing developments. Other rural towns, from Laois to Limerick, Carlow to Clare, Leitrim to Cork, and Meath to Waterford, have had their boundaries stretched by an unprecedented level of construction over the past 15 years. But by 2006 – the same year a record 90,000 new homes were built – it was becoming evident supply was starting to outweigh demand. The most recent figure on the country's oversupply of homes is estimated at an average of 136,000 units. According to DKM Economic Consultants, that figure "is equivalent to around four years of current housing demand". Some local councils are now said to be 'de-zoning' land, but it could all be too little, too late. Take somewhere like Athlone into consideration: according to one councillor, the Westmeath town has enough land re-zoned to last until 2078.


A majority of the ghost estates currently blighting the landscape are Section 23 designated developments says Emer O'Siochru, ecological architect, and director of policy development network Smart Taxes. "Those areas enjoying the most generous tax relief in the country are at the heart of Nama-land," she says. "Not only are they worth next to nothing, many have already cost the exchequer considerable sums."


But those Rural Renewal Schemes, introduced in the 1998 Finance Act, seemed like the proverbial good idea at the time. Offering generous tax allowances for investors and owner-occupiers alike, the aim of the scheme in this part of the world was to invigorate the Upper Shannon region, covering all of Leitrim and Longford, and parts of Cavan. These were areas suffering long-term population decline and low economic growth and it was felt the schemes would encourage people to come and live in the area and also promote new economic activity. With property prices soaring in the capital, shifting to the country seemed a realistic option for young buyers willing to endure a lengthy commute. Longer-term, homeowners could use some of their rapidly rising equity to buy a holiday home, or, instead of a pension, put their nest egg into bricks and mortar and join the growing horde of investors planning to rent out their new property. Longford was one of the places benefiting from the government's decentralisation programme, with the prison service and social-welfare department relocating to the county. Blue-chip companies Abbot Diagnostics and Cameron Willis also boosted employment. But the biggest economic activity here, and repeated elsewhere, was the one that the government based 20% of its national income on – construction.


"Land was a licence to print money as long as property prices were rising," says O'Siochru. "And the landowners and the politically connected developers didn't want the party to stop. Demographic change and global recession has put a halt to the gallop of land speculators for the time being, but the final solution will come only when unearned upswings in land value are taken out of the property equation. We need an annual land value tax. And we are the only developed country without a register of property ownership showing exactly who owns what."


Investors presumed that when the 10-year tax incentives were used up, property would still be in demand and appreciating in value. But infrastructure and amenities were not created to support the new developments springing up. Those who bought holiday homes discovered that they were getting away from it all a little too literally, with scant evidence of the leisure facilities promised.


The investors who would have bought up so much of the tax-incentivised properties are gone from the market now, while values are 75% below what previous investors originally paid for new homes under Section 23 schemes, according to Ronan O'Driscoll, director of Savills New Homes. "In the city, it's very much a different story, and now that people can afford to buy in Dublin, there is little demand for homes in commuter towns. There are too many units and not enough people. I would see rural apartment schemes as a particular problem. When you consider it takes hundreds of years for a little town to grow and develop, and then look at these schemes expected to flourish within three years, it's a pretty bleak scenario."


There is concern that a new law is being discussed which will give developers an extension of five years on their existing planning permission, thereby leaving unfinished ghost estates around the country languishing every longer.


But in Longford, the local council has compiled a register of over 80 unfinished developments and according to local Fine Gael TD James Bannon, the authorities are "pursuing the developers with vigour. For a start, it's the responsibility of the local authority to collect a development charge. It's a condition of planning. If you or I wanted to build a house in the morning, we would have to pay a development charge. So there is an onus to enforce that." But as so many of these housing schemes are excessive to demand, as well as being eyesores on the edges of rural towns, surely planning laws also need to be seriously addressed?


"The development of bland estates has done nothing for the character of rural towns. Some of them send a shiver down your spine – they look like the grim Soviet housing blocks that survive in Russia from the Stalinist era," says Bannon. "The planners have a lot to answer for. They are professional people with degrees in planning. And yet, you will see apartment blocks outside old historic villages such as Edgeworthstown. When you drive through the country, it's the houses built prior to the planning act of 1960 that stand out – for the right reasons. Consideration back then was given to how well the design complemented other buildings in a town or village."


It remains to be seen if the ghost estates will be brought back to life by credit-crunched developers, now that many, like the Grealy Group behind the ill-fated Battery Court, are in receivership. Can they realistically be forced to complete their work by the local councils? The government has other things on its mind. Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan said earlier this month that "Nama is not a bail-out mechanism for developers who have operated irresponsibly". But if the Nama aim is to wipe the bad banks' balance sheets clean, Cllr Mark Casey believes the solution for our blighted landscape may be to wipe it clean too. Section 23 developments "absolutely destroyed" Longford, he says. "The unfinished building sites look more like Beirut, rather than a rural Irish town. We might have to end up doing what they did in Boston with similar ghost estates – just bulldoze them."