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Introduction
This is a public-facing landing page for draft demonstrations built by Rob Cross. It provides an overview and links to each register and supporting information. This is demonstration platform and portfolio project shows how statutory register data can be structured for public transparency and internal decision support.
This website is a regeneration-focused initiative documenting and analysing derelict and long-term vacant property in Ireland. Built as a structured, evidence-led platform, it converts fragmented statutory registers into a clear, map-based resource revealing the scale, geography, and real-world impacts of vacancy, underuse, and town centre decline.
The project does more than highlight dereliction as a problem. By combining clean, structured data, mapping, and accessible communication, it helps local authorities, practitioners, and the public understand where dereliction is concentrated, what stage cases are at, and what opportunities exist for regeneration.
Through developing this platform, I am building practical expertise in vacancy classification, data cleaning and standardisation (including address and Eircode quality), mapping and visualisation, and stakeholder-focused reporting. My goal is to contribute to a local authority or housing regeneration teams working on Town Centre First delivery, vacant homes activation, and sustainable reuse strategies—bringing a strong digital and data-led approach to real-world implementation.
🔮 Future plans:
- Expand coverage: Add more local authority registers while maintaining a consistent structure and terminology. Include vacant sites in the register database.
- Improve data quality: Standardise addresses, add Eircodes where missing, and document a repeatable QA workflow.
- Richer enforcement timelines: Track key statutory stages and dates more consistently so progress and delays are visible.
- Better analytics: Add district and town breakdowns, CPO numbers, trend views such as dereliction clusters, and "time on register" metrics to highlight long-standing cases.
- Case studies: Include short, evidence-based examples of successful reuse (before/after, costs, barriers, outcomes).
- Decision-support outputs: Create exportable reports and summaries that support internal briefings and member queries.
For collaboration, feedback, or demonstration requests, please get in touch.
Regards
Rob Cross
📧 Email: [email protected]
💼 LinkedIn: rob-cross-32793b25
🌐 derelictsites.com
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About Rob Cross
Rob Cross is an architectural designer and BIM and digital design technology specialist who is building a public, data-led project focused on vacancy and dereliction in Ireland as part of the wider housing and town-centre crisis.
What Rob Cross is doing
- Building derelictsites.com and a public demo platform that turns fragmented statutory derelict site registers into a structured, map-based system that is easier to browse, filter, and understand.
- Aggregating and standardising data (including address and Eircode quality) so locations can be mapped and analysed more reliably, and so councils, practitioners, and the public can see patterns and gaps.
- Producing practical “decision support” outputs such as summaries, maps, and metrics like “time on register”, valuations, and levy-related figures, with the aim of making dereliction more transparent and actionable.
How this connects to the Irish housing crisis
Rob frames long-term vacancy and dereliction as a direct contributor to housing shortage and homelessness, highlighting cases where valuable buildings sit unused for decades while emergency accommodation numbers rise.
Policy and implementation focus
- Stronger enforcement and accountability around derelict and vacant property, including attention to vacant above-shop units.
- Better coordination across public bodies and datasets, with an emphasis on addressing institutional “silos”.
- Using mechanisms like CPO and bringing underused property back into circulation with structures that support affordability, such as cost-rental or leasehold approaches.
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Advisory note (figures and data quality)
- This page is a draft demonstration.
- Records may contain missing, inconsistent, or out-of-date information (for example: incomplete addresses, formatting differences, or unverified fields).
- Mapping and summary statistics depend on clean, structured data. Addresses should be complete and standardised, including Eircodes, so records can be reliably mapped and analysed.
- Do not rely on this demo for legal, enforcement, or financial decisions.
- For the latest official figures, always consult the relevant council register.
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📌 What this contains
- Draft, map-based Derelict Sites Register demonstrations for multiple local authorities.
- A plain-English guide to the Derelict Sites Act 1990 process, notices, and levy.
- Example “individual site” pages (photos, links, and mapping) used across demos.