Cork City Council Meeting, 13 September 2010

Kieran’s Comments

Re: The Redevelopment of Beamish & Crawford Site

Lord Mayor,

I’m very concerned about the development of the Beamish and Crawford site – this site has enormous cultural and tourism potential.

Way back in the early 1980s, this Council made the great decision to create Beamish Lucey Park – providing a space to showcase the city’s medieval past in terms of the incorporation of the foundations of the town wall and highlighting the city’s charter in 1185 through the sculptured eight swans on the fountain , sculptural pieces by Seamus Murphy were added in as well as the old Cornmarket Gates that once stood in the backyard of City Hall.

The Beamish & Crawford can be a similar cultural project. This is Where Cork Began.

Possibly this is where Dún Corcaighe, the Viking fort, which was attacked in 848 AD by an Irish chieftain, once stood. Recent excavations on the Grand Parade City Car park site revealed that the people living in the 1100s actually moved the river channel that ran through the site to allow for timber housing and to create the present south channel in the area.

In one pit dug by archaeologists they found a wooden quayside dating to 1160 and in another found the remains of four houses, each demolished to make way for the next one over the space of 50 years between 1100-1150 AD. This is a place of tradition, of continuity, change and legacy, of ambition and determination, engineering ingenuity, survival and experimentation.

I’m always very disappointed when such heritage is discovered and for the most part is covered over. It appears that the city’s civic history is dismissed more often than not. – for example Queen’s Castle, the tower shown in our Coat of Arms, was excavated and encased in concrete in 1996 and still lies under Castle Street;

You had the  Crosses Green Apartment Complex, the remains of a Dominican Friary were discovered in 1993 but no remains were incorporated; the 60m of Town wall found in Kyrl’s Quay in 1993, 10 metres of which was kept and despite being a national monument is now a dumping ground under the ramp leading up into the car park.

I’m reminded at this juncture if you go to their places like Galway, they have successfully incorporated the remnants of their town wall into Eyre Square Shopping Centre, they have also incorporated their built heritage into Eyre Square.

There seems to be a sense to certain developers in this city that heritage is a hindrance  – that we citizens want to live a place that looks the same as some other cities in the world.

I honestly believe we need a new framework for the harnessing of our built heritage  – we need new ideas.

I feel that the heritage frameworks that have in place are not good enough for a city that has a European Capital of Culture and a Lonely Planet accolade under our belts.

All of us when we go on holidays go straight for cultural heritage centres. Despite having structures such as the Lifetime Lab or Blackrock Castle, there is no venue in the city centre that tells the story of Cork’s evolution, revealing the city’s sense of place.

We normally don’t even have Cork flags flying usually in the city centre. I would argue that Cork’s civicness, its memories and nostalgia are not celebrated within the landscape.

Cork is the only settlement in Ireland that has experienced every phase of urban growth. The Beamish & Crawford Site dates back at least 1200 years going through phases such as Viking settlement, Anglo Norman settlement and industrial growth.

This site provides an enormous opportunity to pull a focus back on South Main Street which also date back 1200 years but in our time is rotting away with filthy laneways and dereliction becoming prevalent in a matter of time.

The proper redevelopment of this site into a cultural tourism hub would also help in pulling focus on the new Christ Church development, Meitheal Mara river project and the South Parish Local Area Plan.

I wish to call on the Council to work closely with potential developers. I think with this site it is not good enough to have the attitude “we’ll see what the developer and its architects come up with”.

I welcome the call to open up the thinking on the potential site to the general public. Indeed, part of the new thinking would fit nicely into the aims of the City Council’s  Heritage Plan, its new Parks strategy and the new Arts Strategy.

In an age of the recession, there’s an opportunity through the Beamish and Crawford site to foster our tourism and cultural sector which I feel has not been adequately opened up. There is an enormous cultural and economic opportunity to be missed if the development of this site is messed up.

For more on Cork’s heritage, check out my heritage website www.corkheritage.ie

Cork City Council Meeting, 13 September 2010

Kieran’s Comments in the Council Chamber

Draft Blackpool Local Area Action Plan

Lord Mayor,

I enjoyed the recent planning tour of Blackpool. However, I think I came back even more disillusioned and even disappointed with the lack of strategies coming forward from our planning unit.

On one level, the document to be approved is a good attempt at renewing the heart of Blackpool village, But I was disappointed to hear from our planning officials that because of the economic climate, perhaps only 10 per cent of the plan would probably be implemented. That means 90% failure.

Now I don’t represent the people of Blackpool but to hear that only 10 % of the plan may be implemented should send alarm bells off. Is this council creating false promises to its citizens? We have already sent the South Parish Local Area Plan through and we will have the Mahon Local area plan go through shortly.

Do we need to change our strategies to maximise our local area Development plans. Should they be more people based, development of our communities more so than urban infrastructure? Is our planning structure strong enough to cope with what is happening in Blackpool?

Blackpool was at one stage was a major industrial hub with distilleries, tanneries providing enormous employment, community structures, a strong and confident community.  It is because of its past that Blackpool has that strong sense of place and pride amongst its residents.

The new bypass on one hand in recent years was needed but Blackpool seemed to be left to die by many stakeholders. The development plan talks about an architectural conservation area which is very true if you look at the fine Maddens buildings opened by the Mayor Paul Madden in 1886, the first attempt by this council to clear some of the slums in the immediate area and create a new core in Blackpool.

However, east of here to Leitrim Street, you have a rotting core, and rot is the best way to describe it. The rot is poisoning the spirit of everything that Blackpool was, is and will be.  Eyesores dragging down the aesthetics of a place, the sense of place and identity – decent Cork citizens living in slum like areas.

Boarded up windows versus no boarded up windows

Falling gutters, rusted shoots, trees and Ivy growing through windows

Large scale concrete rotting urban spaces

The Kiln River, as a dumping ground

There seems to be a lack of strategy and no real will to tackle the property owners.

Way back in 1921, there were also some hard handed property owners, who sat on their property on the burnt out Patrick Street not willing to develop despite a compensation package in place and the Council had to take some of them to court to get them moving.

We still have such property owners today with no sense of civic responsibility waiting for years for property prices to go even higher, not even realising that it is they and their derelict buildings that keep property prices low. They are indeed poisoning the area.

At this juncture as well, I wish to thank those businesses that make an effort – in particular I was taken by the two little restaurants on Leitrim Street, probably not making big bucks, struggling, strained, paying their taxes.

A city on top of its game has to remain on top of its game – remain competitive, come up with new ideas – need to work more with stakeholders – challenge, empower the people of the city to move forward –

Ho we do we get people back living in the city?

We need to remain competitive – The city needs to fight for its share,

In a time of recession, we need to work harder and longer

and unfortunately this document does not do this.

Question:

To ask the City manager about the status of repair work on St. Patrick’s Bridge (Cllr Kieran McCarthy)

(ans: to be fixed by late September)

Motions:

To get a report from the Director of Services on the completion status of the Willow Lawn riverside walk (Cllr K McCarthy)

That in 2011 Cork City Council celebrate the 75^th anniversary of the opening of the current City Hall building (Cllr K McCarthy)

Deputising at the Liam Lynch Commemoration Ceremony at Kilcrumper Cemetery in Fermoy, on Sunday, 12 September 2010.