January 2025
Hi, there! — Welcome to the thirty-fourth edition of my monthly newsletter to keep you up to date on my work for Cork City North East.
This month we have motions on installing solar panels at the Black Ash Park & Ride, designating the Glen River Park as a ‘dark space’, and flood prevention in Blackpool — as well as questions on maintenance of cycle lanes and new community parks.
I’ve also included updates on changes to speed limits across the city, progress of the public toilets strategy, and traffic calming works planned in the ward.
As ever, if there’s anything you want to get in touch about, always feel welcome to email me any time at oliver.moran@greenparty.ie — even if it’s just to let me know your thoughts on this newsletter.
Please remember to share this newsletter with your friends and neighbours in the ward as well.
Many thanks!
Oliver
p.s. You can use this link to easily read and share all my monthly newsletters ... oliver.ie/newsletter
Motions and notions
Each councillor can submit up to four motions each month to Cork City Council and ask two formal questions of the Chief Executive. One of these questions is asked at the Local Area Committee and must be about local operational matters.
Before the deadline each month, I meet with my local group, the Cork City North Greens, and we agree motions and questions for the month ahead. We call this our “motions and notions” meeting :-)
If you have ideas or suggestions for a motion, or have a question you want asked, just let me know!
Or join the Cork City North Greens ... my.greenparty.ie
Questions
“To ask the Chief Executive if there is a process in place to maintain and replace broken or missing protective wands for cycle lanes across the city?”
I will also ask the following question at the next meeting of the North East ward Local Area Committee:
“To ask the Chief Executive for progress in acquiring ownership of the area under the footbridge from Clifton Terrace to the Lower Glanmire Road from CIÉ; and for its use as a community park project, especially to provide a focus for community activities during the planned temporary closure of St Luke’s Community Garden to treat Japanese knotweed?”
Motions
“That Cork City Council will install PV solar car park canopies at scale at the Black Ash Park & Ride, connecting with the existing electricity generation infrastructure at Tramore Valley Park.”
“That Cork City Council will designate the Glen River Park as a ‘dark space’, free of artificial light, for the benefit of nature and to act as a dark skies location close to the city centre.”
“That Cork City Council will provide infrastructure for the attenuation of rain waters on Spring Lane to prevent flooding at the Dublin Street end of Spring Lane and nearby parts of Blackpool.”
“That, on the occasion of 80 years since the liberation of Auschwitz, remembering the genocide of the Jewish people of Europe and those called ‘gypsies’ (Roma and Sinti), and the persecution of homosexuals, disabled people, trade unionists, political activists and many others by the Nazi government, that the incoming Government of Ireland will recant condolences on the death of Hitler conveyed by President Douglas Hyde and Taoiseach Éamon de Valera; and that this motion will be forwarded to An Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs, Micheál Martin.”
Contributions
At January’s meeting of Cork City Council, I made spoken contributions on traffic enforcement, grants for vacant properties, tree preservation orders and more.
You can now watch back my contributions in the chamber on YouTube.
What’s happening?
Speed limit changes
This month, Cork City Council took the first step to implementing a citywide reduction in speed limits. The new speed limits are a nationwide initiative but being implemented at local level in two phases.
This first phase reduces the limit on more typically-rural roads in the city from 80km/h to 60km/h. In the North East ward, these will apply in Kilcully and Rathcooney. The changes come into effect from Friday, 7 February.
The next phase will reduce roads in built-up and residential areas that are now 50km/h to 30km/h. That’s expected to come in around the middle of the year.
There are a number of areas that I will be particularly interested in during that phase. These include Ballyhooly Road, Lower Glanmire Road, New Inn and Burke’s Hill, where residents have been calling for 30km/h zones for a long time.
Reducing the speed of motorists is a huge demand from residents across the whole city area.
Last year, 174 people were killed on our roads nationally and thousands more were injured.
Reducing the speed of motorists is the single greatest act that we can take to make roads safer for everyone. When someone is struck with a car at 30km/h, there’s a 5% chance of them being killed. At 60km/h, that falls to just a 50:50 chance of survival and, at 80km/h, 90% of people struck with a car will be killed.
Progress on public toilets strategy
As an on-going effort, I have been following up on the implementation of the Cork City Council public toilet strategy that was agreed in 2021.
As part of this strategy, a new public toilet was opened on Grand Parade. However, many people still don’t know it is there. In November, I proposed additional street signage would be installed to highlight the location of these toilets. Officials are now progressing the provision of this signage.
Alongside more genuinely public toilets, another part of the strategy is encouraging businesses to allow use of their toilets through a sticker scheme (the ‘Leeside Leithreas’) and an initiative called ‘Take a Seat’.
The ‘Take a Seat’ initiative proposes that a portion of outdoor seating at restaurants and pubs are set aside for older visitors to the city centre, who may need to rest. There would be no need to make a purchase from the participating businesses and people could avail of a glass of water and use the toilet, if they needed to.
The vision is one of a holistic welcome, building on what’s already a long-standing arrangement, and making it work for everyone.
In December, officials confirmed to me that Cork City Council will soon be publishing an action plan for the Cork City Age Friendly Programme. Both the ‘Take a Seat’ and ‘Leeside Leithreas’ schemes will be incorporated into the plan for 2025.
These initiatives will be part of training provided free-of-charge to the Cork business community in conjunction with Cork City Local Enterprise Office, Cork Business Association and Cork Chamber.
Traffic calming works
A public consultation is open on traffic calming across the city. That itself is a good thing. However, something else that’s notable is that the North East ward accounts for about 40% of the works planned, despite being just 20% of the city.
That’s because of the priorities set by councillors here in ward-level budgets. We’ve consistently set additional money aside for traffic calming — by topping-up the citywide allocation to the ward — because we know it’s something demanded by residents.
These budgets have grown incrementally since they were first introduced in 2021. This year we’ll also be using it to mark the Mary MacSwiney Bridge in Blackpool. A new fund for local footpath maintenance was agreed in the city budget for 2025 too.
These are all being funded by the local variation in Local Property Tax, which in Cork is reserved for discretionary budgets under councillor’s control.
The list of areas in the ward where traffic calming works are proposed for 2025 is:
Ballincollie Road (Glen Rovers)
Ballincollie Road (Murphy’s Rock Bar to Kinvara)
Brookville Estate
Glyntown Road
Kilcully Road
Lus na Meala
Spring Lane
Tracton Avenue
Silversprings Lawn
Silversprings Court
The exact location of speed ramps and other measures can be found on the Cork City Council public consultation portal. Submissions can be made through the portal until Friday, 24 January, 2025.
In the news…
Proposal to develop and extend ‘living over the shop’ scheme in Cork city welcomed
Green Party councillor Oliver Moran proposed that Cork City Council will develop and promote its own ‘Living Over the Shop’ scheme for businesses and property owners.
Echo, Wednesday, 15 January
Cork to see €6m spent on resurfacing city roads over six months
Green Party city councillor Oliver Moran noted that there isn’t equivalent Department of Transport funding for footpaths.
Irish Examiner, Monday, 6 January
Public dog park opens at popular Cork location
Green Party councillor Oliver Moran said, “Somewhere that dog owners can bring their pets to run off the leash has been an ask in the city for a long time.”
Echo, Saturday, 14 December
Keep in touch
Thanks for reading! Please feel welcome to share this newsletter and invite other people you know to subscribe — and, if you can, please consider making a donation to my political activities in the ward.
You can also keep up to date with my activities on Bluesky, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Mastodon and TikTok. And don’t forget, you can email me any time at oliver.moran@greenparty.ie.
Have a great month!
