'Council can't make retail happen', but Cork city chief executive says huge investment will bring footfall

The chief executive of Cork City Council has said that the “huge investment” in the redevelopment of the Crawford Art Gallery and the €46m redevelopment of Bishop Lucey Park will bring footfall into the city.

Ann Doherty said the works will make the park “far more opened up”, minimising the risks of anti-social behaviour.

“Cities work best when spaces are not cornered off, when you can move freely through them,” Ms Doherty said. “The redevelopment provides that. It also provides an opportunity to refocus on the historic walls but also have event space because getting people together in the city centre is really important.”

Ms Doherty made the comments in an interview with Neil Prendeville on Cork’s RedFM.

During the interview, Ms Doherty discussed recent business closures in the city.

“City council can’t make retail happen, what we can do is create conditions which will mean that we have a pleasant city centre that’s easy to get about and that has other facilities in it so that people will come,” she said.

“We know there have been huge changes — online shopping, cost of living — but then we’re also seeing new entrants coming into the market in the city so that should give us hope and confidence.”

She acknowledged that some independent traders have closed “for different reasons” but said Cork City Council has been supporting businesses.

“In the last 13 years, we’ve only increased our rates by 5% but we offer a huge discount to our smaller ratepayers so we do things to try and help those retailers to trade successfully in our city,” she said.

Speaking about antisocial behaviour, drug use and organised begging in the city centre, Ms Doherty said she works “really closely” with the chief superintendent in relation to addressing the issues.

“Yes, I’m chief executive of the city council but I’m not head of the police. We have an amazing chief superintendent in the city,” she said.

“Speaking to Superintendent Thomas Myers, in the last 12 months, there have been 173 arrests for begging which is the highest in the country so we have to work very closely together. We have had problems with begging before and we worked together to ensure that it’s not attractive for professional beggars to be in our city.”

When asked, Ms Doherty refused to say how much the estimated cost of building the long-planned multi-million euro events centre will cost, saying it is “a government decision”.

Last month, Cork City Council said the estimated cost of building the events centre had increased yet again.

She said the events centre, when complete, would have an economic benefit to Cork of around €179m per year in revenue and that it would create 1,000 jobs.