CORK County Council is taking action on derelict properties, including a vacant building in Bandon.

The local authority served notice of its intention to buy ten derelict sites across the county via Compulsory Purchase Order (CPO).

The residential three-storey property, at St Patricks Hill in Bandon, is valued at €150,000 and was entered to the Derelict Sites Register in December 2022.

Similar notices have been posted on nine other buildings throughout the county, though none of them in West Cork.

Eight properties in Cork have already been successfully compulsorily acquired under the Derelict Sites Act, including three properties on Oliver Plunkett Street in the town.

The council have two teams working on vacancy and dereliction, the Vacant Homes Office and the Town Regeneration Office.

In the latter half of 2022, a countywide survey of vacant residential property began, which to date has surveyed 2,825 properties.

The council is taking a number of approaches with these property owners, including encouraging them to put the building up for sale, to avail of the Croí Cónaithe Vacant Property Refurbishment Grant, or work with the council on a ‘negotiated acquisition’ if the property is suitable for social housing.

The local authority says it encourages owners to work with both the planning department and the council’s conservation officer on options for developing the property.

The Vacant Property Refurbishment Grant uptake in county Cork is the second highest in the country.

From late 2022 to the end of 2024, a total of 1,026 applications for assistance under the scheme were received by the council, which they say represents a ‘significant number of vacant and derelict properties that are now being renovated and reoccupied.’

Where efforts fail, or the owners cannot be identified, the council’s Town Regeneration Office takes measures under the Derelict Sites Act 1990.

Under these powers, there are 124 properties throughout the county on the formal Derelict Sites Register, 32 of them in West Cork.

There are five other Bandon properties formally derelict and on the register, with five in Dunmanway, four in Clonakilty, and eight in Kinsale.

Another five properties are located in Bantry.

Cork County Council maintain that using compulsory acquisition is ‘generally a last resort’, and is only pursued when all other efforts have been unsuccessful.