‘Free Swimming Pool On Rainy Days’

at

 

Yesterday.

At Millerstown, Kilcock, on the border of counties Kildare and Meath.

Ken writes:

“We told them it was on a floodplain but they ignored us. We pointed out that the site was listed as such on the Government website floodmaps.ie and they said sure we’ll make them put in a tank.

“Meath County Council have a lot of questions to answer. €500,000 for a five-bed and situated near two rivers and a canal. Free swimming pool on rainy days.”

Anyone?

Yesterday: Soft Day

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29 thoughts on “‘Free Swimming Pool On Rainy Days’

  1. Liam Deliverance

    How was it getting Home Insurance Ken? When we tried to shop around many places said “Computer says No”, why I asked, they said floodmaps.ie says flood risk area, I told them no floods for any of my neighbours, ever, nearest flood report area is about 2 km away and that was the big rain in 2009.Of course they changed their mind then and gave us a great quote – just kidding, they didn’t, said nothing they could do and ended the call.

    1. pok

      building on floodplains was not insurers fault -however you might dislike or distrust insurers it is not their function to remedy such planning errors

      1. Liam Deliverance

        I’m not living on a floodplain Pok, I was curious if Ken was able to get House Insurance in his situation.

  2. Zaccone

    500k for a small new build in Meath? Would you be interested in buying a lovely bridge to go over your new swimming pool by any chance? I’ll do you a good price.

    1. realPolithicks

      Thats my bridge don’t even think about trying to sell it…(however I can let you have it for a reasonable price).

    2. scottser

      I can get you planning permission for the bridge in return for a non-refundable contribution to my benevolent fund.

  3. Charger Salmons

    The simple fact is anyone who buys a property without doing due diligence and subsequently finds it is in a flood plain is a muppet.
    It’s the equivalent of buying a house and not noticing next door is the HQ of the local Hells Angels gang.
    But hey,in this society,it’s ALWAYS someone else’s fault when the ordure hits the fan.

      1. Kolmo

        That is why there are supposed to be statutory regulation of the industry by government as the people buying houses are too busy nursing, driving buses, teaching, raising kids, etc to study specialised technical details relating to house construction and local hydrographic and topgraphic specifics, just like you don’t know the technical procedural details of an apendectamy or the operation of air traffic control. It was known as a floodplain by locals, also by local planning, but it is not locals purchasing for the most part..shouldn’t have been built there..

        1. Rob_G

          No-one is suggesting that people should perform surveys themselves, but if you are spending half a million euro(!) on an asset, it makes sense to spend 0.02% of the purchase price to hire a professional to make sure everything checks out.

          1. Nigel

            Yeah but I think focusing on caveat emptoring the owners misses the distressing likelihood that planning and building in Ireland is very much stuck in the bad old days.

  4. rotide

    Are you actually trying to blame Meath County Council for you paying 500k for your house?

    Did they hold a knife to your throat until you signed on the dotted line?

    1. Nigel

      No. I think he’s pointing out that it was a stupid place to build, a ridiculous price, and that this was obvious from the get-go. There’s nothing to indicate that Ken actually bought one of these houses, and since he talks of warning the Council at the planning stage, every reason to suppose he didn’t.

      The broader point is that a lot of really obvious lessons about planning have not been learned, and it actually beggars belief.

  5. Joe

    Did those folk not do their homework on the location. Flooding, future development plans and other info about locations available for free. lazy buyers

    1. Nigel

      I have to say, reactions like this help explain why county councils and developers can get away with building houses on flood plains.

      1. dylad

        Well said. ‘Shure it was their look out’ typifies the attitude of the average Irish person unfortunately. Also, it is worth noting that developments cause an increase in flooding as they reduce drainage.

      2. Charger Salmons

        Reactions like what ?
        Someone spends half a million big ones on a McMansion in Nowheresville,Population You and they don’t engage surveyors or their common sense to work out it’s on a flood plain.
        Muppets like that deserve no sympathy.

        1. scottser

          Councils are responsible for carrying out actions in the flood directive. It’s not good enough that the same organisation grants planning in a known flood risk area. But carry on with the schadenfreude, it’s what we’ve come to expect.

        2. Nigel

          Funnily enough this helps explain why Brexiteers are okay with the people responsible for Brexit negotiations being such a joke.

  6. the bottler

    It would be interesting to research who owned this flood plain land prior to its rezoning for home building.

    1. Don

      No, the houses didn’t flood. The area that flooded was designed to flood in an event like this.

      However it looks fairly full, and might not cope with a worse event, which is not unlikely.

  7. A person

    Were any of the houses flooded? Or was the flood plain flooded. It seems from the pics that no property was actually flooded. Needless online outrage shurely?

    1. Nigel

      If you are right and that’s a swale then that’s actually a good sign. Swales retain water and releases it slowly at the speed of the water table dropping, reducing risk of flooding downstream. Holy crap. Maybe they HAVE learned something.

      (With a bit of planting there’s no reason why a swale can’t be made into a reasonably attractive feature over the years, too.)

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