The Colliers Report is a great plan with some great imagination in it. I think the sense of brain storming in it is something this city needs. Our city is the southern capital and we should accentuate this concept more.

A City of Welcomes:

As someone who has been giving walking tours around town for 21 years this summer, we need to develop the city as an experience – it is a city with great charm, pride and heart – one of the aspects that tourists always chat to me about is the charm, heart, feeling welcome and a friendly place, a place you find hard to forget – it’s size means we all have a somewhat good quality of life; in general average commute times are 20 minutes to and from the suburbs – there are traffic hot spots that need to be resolved but not to the extent of other European cities

Rebrand as a City of Festivals:

The City centre is significantly losing out to suburban shopping centres; we need to stop this leakage – the city needs to aggressively market itself much more – parking is an issue, upwards rent reviews, rates, dereliction are all problems but so are a wide range of other factors. I always think, we’re not really pulling the marketing of the city across the line –there is need to develop a package/ scheme where citizens want to and need to support the city centre. Even with the city’s 24 festivals – 100 days of festivals per year – some work well and bring masses of people in and others we need to work on and grow. The city needs to rebrand itself as a city of festivals – there is no reason why places like Galway and Dublin are taking much of that kudos as Irish festival capitals if we do as much work and even more in Cork.

2005- ten years on

The city consistently oversees a great quantity and high quality of cultural work – Next year marks ten years on since the European Capital of Culture years. The City needs use this point in time to see how we can market Cork’s culture more on a national and European level.

On the Waterfront:

Our waterfront only really becomes animated for four festivals a year – we need more waterfront activities – just compare ourselves to places like Dublin or further afield in Boston, Bristol and Liverpool. I’m not saying to become those places but they’re are ideas out there elsewhere that we can draw on to accentuate on what is already going on and  to showcase perhaps what should be going on in our river and waterfront area

We need the National Diaspora Centre:

City does need an international visitor site – this city needs to have the National Diaspora Centre – the city was a major player as a North Atlantic Port City – which we don’t tell the story of enough – the export of goods plus emigration stories are not explored and told enough to the citizen and visitor.

On Historic Quarters

We don’t harness our historic quarters enough – Shandon Craft Centre needs to be moved on – my preference is for the Council to work in tandem with the Shandon Area Renewal Association and the local festivals, to turn it into a community building.  In my own ward, Docklands, a quarter of enormous historical wealth, is not mined for its uniquenesses and how it could be used to rebrand the city’s link to the harbour and further afield. The city needs to create more Cork Community Art Links to work within the city and suburbs exploring the senses of places in different area bringing forth the sense of history and culture of what makes Cork different to other cities and why people should live shop and do business here.

A Student City:

I think as a city we don’t make enough of the 35,000 students we have here; The city has rightly berated some for their anti-social behaviour but we don’t accentuate enough the positives of how much of a student city we are and how much they contribute to our economy – from accommodation to food to night life. A city that looks after its young, its families and senior citizens are very attractive qualities.