A COUNCILLOR has called for the threshold for affordable housing to be changed because couples earning two standard incomes are ‘missing out’, writes Jackie Keogh.

At a meeting of the Western Division, Cllr Ann Bambury (SD) said there is a good mix of developments in Bandon, but improved social and community infrastructure is needed.

She claimed that the family resource centre in Bandon is stretched to the limit because there is no citizen’s information centre in the town.

‘The population has increased over 50 per cent between 2002 and 2022, and there is a 25 per cent increase in the immigrant population, all of which needs to be matched with social infrastructure,’ she said.

She asked for a needs-based assessment to be carried out on a county-wide basis because there is considerable strain on existing resources.

Her party colleague, Cllr Isobel Towse, pointed out that Clonakilty doesn’t have a citizen’s information centre either and planners and policy makers have no baseline stats for them to work off.

‘We need a needs-based assessment: for example, we need to know many GPs are needed because these baseline figures don’t exist nationally.’

Cllr Alan Coleman (Ind) pointed out that house purchase prices and rentals in Kinsale are the highest in the county and are similar to prices in Dublin South.

As a result, he said: ‘The only people catered for are those who can afford to live there, and those who qualify for social housing.’

Cllr Coleman said the 169 affordable and 50-plus social houses in Kinsale represents ‘a great investment,’ but it wasn’t helping the squeezed middle.

He also expressed disappointment that the local authority had not been able to mix private housing with social and affordable housing because the affordable houses are located at one side of the town, with social houses at the other.

Cllr Marie O’Sullivan (FG) called on the local authority to provide clinics to teach people how to operate the air-to-water heat pump systems because some tenants don’t know how to use it properly.