Writes Ciaran Dineen
Cork County Council and the Carrigaline Municipal District (MD) recently announced that €5,000 has been provisionally allocated in order to extend the current size of the very popular Parklet in Carrigaline.
It comes following a motion submitted by Councillor Liam O’Connor, who requested at March’s meeting of the Carrigaline MD “that the area engineer assess if the parklet in the Owenabue carpark could be extended. Four car parking spaces would need to be removed. Plant boxes to section off the area would be required and additional seating could be installed.”
At the latest meeting of the district, Cllr O’Connor was informed that while a confirmation on the cost associated with purchasing additional seating and benches had yet to be made, €5,000 was the figure awarded to the project as an estimate, through the Town Development Fund (TDF).
The news was welcomed by Councillors but both Cllr Seámus McGrath and Cllr Marcia D’Alton reiterated the need to first consider the wider public realm works, before pressing ahead with the parklet extension.
This point had been made at March’s session, with councillors suggesting that if the extension was to be only a very temporary measure due to the bigger impact of the public realm redesign, then perhaps the allocation of funding may not be necessary if a more permanent solution is coming down the line.
For some time, public representatives have been actively seeking an update on when the Carrigaline public realm plan design details will be made available. It is expected that proposals will be open for public viewing and consultation at some stage in May, with radical changes to the layout and future design of Carrigaline expected to emerge from the vision provided by Cork County Council architect, Giulia Vallone.