Funding approved for 27 housing units at Cork halting site

Funding has been approved for 27 housing units at the Spring Lane and Ellis’s Yard halting site near Blackpool in Cork City.

The plans were discussed at a meeting of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on key issues affecting the Traveller community.

Brian Geaney, assistant chief executive of Cork City Council, addressed the Joint Committee, saying that “Traveller accommodation is a priority that needs to be urgently addressed.”

He said that Cork City Council has carried out "extensive engagement over the last two years with the residents of Spring Lane" and that a stakeholder engagement specialist has been working directly with the residents since the outset to understand their needs and requirements.

Design of houses 

“The proposed design of each house, site layout and family grouping of houses have been discussed with each family, which has proved very beneficial in securing buy-in, building trust and identifying key issues throughout the process.

“The necessary associated design work, on-site surveys, environmental assessments and internal and agency consultation are now complete.

“As a consequence of these efforts, managed through our dedicated project implementation team, a detailed proposal has been completed for 27 new housing units between Spring Lane and Ellis’s Yard," he said. 

Stage 2 funding to the tune of €17.9m was approved by the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage at the end of January 2024.

Consultation 

Following a briefing of the public, the plans will go to a public consultation process for a minimum of six weeks, before being brought the council for approval. 

“There will be a public consultation phase to dispel the myths and misinformation out there and to address the concerns of the settled community - I refer to misinformation such as sites doubling in size.

“Unfortunately, people can spread misinformation for their own purposes and we need to be clear in our consultation process that misinformation such as this is not the case.

“We need to engage with as many people as possible to outline what the correct factual position is and then obviously, move on to prepare the report and move into council,” he said.

Mr Geaney also provided some history of the site, which is more than 30 years old, saying “Ten families initially moved in but that grew probably fivefold over the past three decades or so.

“Over those years and in more recent times, there has been much replacement of mobile homes, provision of welfare units and so on, but we fully accept the site needs to be redeveloped.”