Residents of the 96 house, apartments and creche, Cahereen Heights private estate invited Mayor of Killarney Municipal Area, Cllr. Bobby O’Connell to officially flick their Christmas Lights to life at the entrance of the estate as Christmas approached.
In doing so they celebrated a year which saw a major overhaul of many of the vital services on the estate.
The event also marked the closing of a 13 month period during which the ground quite literally opened up and swallowed the road-side green, play area on November 22nd 2014.
From shortly after that catastrophic episode and after the intervention of Liberty Insurance the overhaul of the estate’s shortcomings began.
Through Christmas 2014 the estate looked like a building site as the old paths and sewage and public lighting systems were being replaced and upgraded.
To their great delight the residents gathered on May 16th to mark the end of the works and the appearance of their good-as-new estate.
They erected a tent, arranged a mass and a blessing and all came out in their Saturday evening finery on the occasion.
The year, which is now slipping away from us, also saw the estate claiming a place on the most desirable address list. This was bolstered by two sit-in queues for two different sales of blocks of houses there. One at the end of June and the other one on the final few days of November.
The Christmas lighting this week presents a outward appearance of a community further celebrating pride in its area. However, there’s a sense of light and dark to all of this. On the very day the lights were being assembled on the impressive cut-stone and iron-railed entrance, a developer had lodged a significant offer for a seven-and-a-half-acre parcel of land on the estate.
This, the residents believed and hoped would be developed into a green area / leisure park for the ever growing population of the estate. There are also issues beyond the green and leisure area concerns.
Local residents’ association chairman, Charlie Farrelly addressed the concerns of the area by pointing out that the revamped sewage system is suitable only for the amount of houses currently on the estate.
“In our opinion what we’ve had done here in the upgrade would not be able to cope with any new housing development on the estate. We believe that any extension to the residential area would have to establish its own sewage and water connections with all the resultant digging up and rooting of the surfaces just finished.
“We’ve had our share of re-development work here and that was heavy going while if was in progress. We waited a long time for it and I think we deserve a break in this regard. We need a green area and we don’t need an over-load on a sewage and storm water system that’s working at near full capacity now.
“We have made contact with the receiver and asked for a donation of a green area from the tract of land now for sale. We’re prepared to offer a nominal fee for such a space here and we are anxiously awaiting a response to our written approach,” said Mr. Farrelly.
