BUILDING company Bam is proposing to double the size of a planned brewery interpretive centre on the former Beamish & Crawford site on South Main Street.

It follows concerns raised by City Hall planners over a possible reduction in space for an interpretive centre, saying the tourist offering from the overall project would suffer.

In November Bam lodged plans with City Hall to modify the existing planning permission for Zone B of the Beamish site. This covers the historic Counting House building.

The original permission included a seven-screen cinema, an observation tower and a brewing experience interpretive centre that would detail the history of brewing on the site.

In their new application, Bam wants to drop the cinema and instead use the space for offices and educational uses.

Last month, planners wrote to Bam outlining concerns about the plans to reduce the size of the interpretive centre.

“The reduction in such space and the dispersed nature of the revised proposal diminishes this potential and the scope to develop a significant cultural/tourist offering (reflecting the importance and history of the site)," Cork City Council said.

Bam has now responded to the Council revising their ground floor plans more than doubling the area that will be used for cultural space.

The company said 732 square metres of ground floor space could be used to hold exhibitions either detailing archaeological finds or cover the history of the site or surrounding sites depending on interest from a suitable end user.

City Hall is now examining the further information supplied by Bam.

A planning decision on their application is expected next month.