October 2023
Hi, there! — Welcome to the nineteenth 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 a 24-hour bus service to Glanmire, local meeting places in St Luke’s, and community parks and gardens, as well as questions on construction practices by Irish Water. I’ve also included updates on research ahead of the Cork City Climate Action Plan, budget plans for action on dereliction, and the issues created by illegal parking on MacCurtain Street.
Please share this newsletter with your neighbours and friends in the ward. If you have thoughts and feedback on any issue in the ward, or if there’s anything you want to get in touch about, please feel welcome to email me any time at oliver.moran@greenparty.ie.
Many thanks!
Oliver
p.s. You can use this link to easily share this newsletter ... oliver.ie/newsletter
Motions and notions
Every month, each councillor can submit up to four motions 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 permission was granted to Uisce Éireann to dump or store construction material in an area zoned High Landscape Value off the North Ring Road opposite Corrib Lawn?”
This question will be answered at the full meeting of Cork City Council on Monday. I will also submit a question to the Local Area Committee later in the month.
Motions
“That Cork City Council will report on progress of the Colmcille Avenue to Gardiner’s Hill Active Travel Scheme.”
“That Cork City Council believes the new 2A (MTU to Glanmire) bus service should be a 24-hour service, like the 1 (Ovens to Carrigaline) and 3A (Carrigaline to Hollyhill); and will forward this motion to the National Transport Authority.”
“That Cork City Council will facilitate use of St Luke’s Church as a community meeting place, especially for issues relating to culture and placemaking.”
“That Cork City Council will make a statement identifying the St Luke’s Community Garden as a Community Green Space, meeting the needs of a Pocket Park and other objectives under the Cork City Development Plan 2022–28.”
What’s happening?
Cork’s own climate action plan
Cork City Council is getting ready to open a public consultation on it’s local Climate Action Plan. To prepare for this, last month, it published a series of important reports on climate change.
These included a baseline survey of the current sources of climate changing emissions in the city. This confirmed that household energy use (34%), road transport (29%) and business and industry (22%) are the city’s largest sources of climate pollution.
Another was a survey of the understanding and attitudes of residents of the city towards climate action. This survey was undertaken by Behaviour & Attitudes on behalf of the city, just like opinion polling in a newspaper.
The results showed a high level of engagement and awareness among the residents of the city.
The initiative of hiring a polling company to survey households is an example of Cork City Council both engaging with residents on climate action and being science driven. It’s clear from the results that the people of Cork are very engaged in what’s happening.
Nearly everyone agrees that climate change is happening (88%) and that it’s affecting the weather in the city (80%).
The kinds of actions that people most want to see is better green areas and a shifting away from solid fuels, but also more locally produced food. Younger people, in particular those under 35, want more pedestrianised streets and a walkable city.
However, there are challenges too. One-in-three homeowners are considering home energy upgrades in the next 12 months, particularly the installing of solar panels, but the up-front cost is a barrier for 74% of homeowners.
The reliability of public transport is also a barrier to 30% of residents, which emphasises the importance of supporting initiatives like BusConnects Cork that will prioritise public transport.
Action on derelict properties
Preparation is beginning this month for the Cork City Council budget for 2024. Included in this will be the budget for maintenance of housing and action on vacancy and dereliction.
There is an old phrase in politics, which is “show me your budget and I’ll tell you your policies”. It’s one thing to say what you want to happen, it’s another to put a monetary figure beside it.
Action on derelict sites is tortuously slow but there are signs that there is going to be a step-change in 2024.
This year, a dedicated unit was set up to tackle dereliction in the city. In 2023, the budgeted amount for that unit was €24,000. In 2024, it will expand to €175,000, almost all of which will be pay.
Staff resources are needed because each derelict building involves its own history, including maybe financial and legal difficulties, which are painstaking to work through. The intention of the new unit is to more aggressively go after levies and bringing properties back into use — including court proceedings against property owners who don’t pay or bring their properties out of dereliction.
The city will also have a fund of €6m for the acquisition of properties in 2024 and the budget for grants to repair vacant properties will rise from €1.9m to €4.7m.
The first payments of the Residential Zoned Land Tax on idle land zoned for housing will be due in May 2024 as well. This will act as a stick against land-hoarding, especially where there’s already planning permission.
For example, I was able to include a particular parcel of land on Brian Boru Street that has planning permission for three apartments and has been empty since 2009. The landowner will now have to pay 3% of the value of the land each year they don’t build those apartments.
MacCurtain Street illegal parking
The new public realm investment happening on MacCurtain Street will improve the attractiveness of the area to visit. Works are expected to be complete before Christmas.
The residents and traders of the area are very ambitious and have a great plan for investing in it. Unfortunately, a lot of people have observed that that’s being eaten away at by illegal parking — and they are rightly complaining about it.
Last week, officials confirmed to me that 309 parking fines were issued in the MacCurtain Street area so far in 2023, almost a quarter of these were for parking on footpaths.
Officials were eager to point out that the project is still under construction and works on the statutory lines and signs to facilitate enforcement is yet to be completed. Moreover, design issues that do not encourage parking compliance may need to be reconsidered.
Five categories of illegal parking made up 87% of fines issued in the area:
Parking on a footpath (68 fines, 22%)
Parking at a time prohibited (59 fines, 19%)
Parking in a loading bay (51 fines, 17%)
Failure to display a valid parking disc (48 fines, 16%)
Failing to display a current motor tax disc (44 fines, 14%)
It’s not surprising that the largest number of fines issued was for parking on footpaths. That is what people most complained about. Even as the project is being worked on, motorists are squeezing onto footpaths and holding up traffic in bus stops.
Nighttime parking in bus stops blocks the street for everyone. It means disabled people may not be able to access the bus and it holds up other traffic on the street.
The Green Party is negotiating a pilot of out-of-hours patrols by Traffic Wardens in the city centre as part of the city’s budget for 2024. This will be welcome in the MacCurtain Street area.
The Gardaí have been very helpful in responding and doing out-of-hours operations, especially for blocking footpaths at night-time, but they would prefer the city to take over. Currently, wardens work daytime hours Monday to Saturday. For an area like MacCurtian Street, which is a nighttime destination, patrolling the streets out-of-hours will be key to delivering for the area.
In the news…
Cork bus services struggling with lack of drivers as abuse and attacks continue
Green Party councillor, Oliver Moran, said abuse of bus drivers was unacceptable and hoped the driver in the incident at the weekend was safe.
Cork Beo, Tuesday, 2 October
Irish Rail proposing new early morning service linking Cork and Dublin
Green party councillor for Cork North East, Oliver Moran, described it as “good news” for anyone commuting from Dublin to Cork for a meeting.
Echo, Wednesday, 13 September
“It’s pretty loud” – Should busking be regulated?
Andrea Gilligan is joined by David Owens, busker and musician, Oliver Moran, Green Party councillor, and Kevin Hurlihy, from Cork Business Association.
Newstalk, Monday, 11 September
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 2024 re-election campaign.
You can also keep up to date with my activities on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon and TikTok. And don’t forget, you can email me any time at oliver.moran@greenparty.ie.
Have a great month!
