Ongar, Dublin
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Ongar is an area of greenfield housing developments in the outer suburbs of Dublin, Ireland. Building started in 2001 and continues today. Ongar is located south of Clonee and is sometimes shown as part of that area, and west of Clonsilla and Blanchardstown. It is roughly three km from Blanchardstown Shopping Centre.
The area includes a mix of apartments and larger houses. Nearby neighbourhoods include Hazelbury Green and Beechfield, both being a 10 minute walk from Ongar, respectively.
The focal point of Ongar is an "old style Irish village" main street where all of the area's commercial services are located. At present there is a Dunnes Stores, a barber shop, a ladies hair salon, a florist, a café, a print shop, a woman's gym, a butcher shop, a bakery, a dry cleaners, a Chinese take away, a Pizza outlet, an optician, a bookmaker as well as a medical centre and several commercial offices, and a video rental store. The old Ongar Manor House will soon reopen its doors as a pub and restaurant. The Ongar Educate Together Primary School was due to move to a permanent home in September 2007.
The site on which Ongar is built is the site of a former stud farm whose previous owners include the Aga Khan and the American actress Rita Hayworth.
On the 9th February 2008 Ongar residents staged a protest against Manor Park Homes who built Ongar and Wallace Property Management for their failures to complete community facilities such as the long proposed all weather pitches. Residents are also unhappy[citation needed] at the failure of Wallace Property management to keep the area clean and tidy and to deal with the day to day issues faces by residents ie. noise issues, anti-social behavior, poor standard of construction. Litter is a major problem in the area and despite residents paying up to €440 per year to Wallace, little is being done about the situation. This is part of a wider Irish problem concerning management companies who seem happy to take large sums of money from residents without providing an adequate service in return.[citation needed]
Fine Gael have issued a policy document on the issue of management companies in residential areas on May 27th 2008. (http://www.finegael.ie/news/documents/Modern%20Living.pdf)
[edit] Social Demographics
Ongar has a vast range of nationalities living within it. The majority are foreign-nationals who have come to Ireland due to it's strong economy after the Celtic Tiger boom. Others have come due to the generous social welfare benefits available. The main reason Ongar houses so few Irish, is due to timing. The majority of apartments were made available for sale / rent as a lot of employment opportunities opened up in Blanchardstown. At the same time, the European Union expanded allowing the free passage of inhabitants of more countries.
[edit] Crime
Crime is quite a large problem in Ongar. Up until Summer 2008, Ongar was policed by Lucan Garda station. This meant response times were very slow and as such, Ongar remained an area void of policing. In the Summer of 2008, Ongar was moved to the remit of Blanchardstown Garda station which is much closer. As such, crime has begun to reduce.
