Cork's historic North Main St the focus of council's painting grant scheme

Cork City Council has announced that North Main Street will be the focus of this year’s Painting Grant Scheme.

The scheme, now in its 13th year, is aimed at encouraging investment into the character and appearance of historic areas of the city, as part of a wider regeneration programme.

The initiative is now open for submissions from residential and commercial property owners on North Main St, who are looking to undergo minor improvement works.

Qualifying improvement works include painting, rendering, gutters, and downpipes, to the maximum value of €1,500 per building.

Successful applicants will be awarded 50% of the costs of qualifying improvement works, with further funding of up to €2,500 available for corner buildings with two facades onto the street.

Over the previous 12 years, more than 300 buildings have benefitted from the Painting Grant Scheme, with North Main St chosen as this year’s focus as it forms “part of the historic spine” of Cork city.

Targeted

Speaking to The Echo, city centre co-ordinator with Cork City Council, John Hayes said: “We have targeted this scheme at different key areas in the city to provide assistance and to encourage property owners to paint their buildings.

“We looked at numerous areas in the city centre [when choosing this year’s focus] — we looked at the conditions of the buildings in those areas and places where we could have an impact.

“In the end, we decided that North Main St merits that.

“This is just one of a number of interventions planned for North Main St this year — it’s one of the oldest streets in Cork and forms a part of the historic spine of the Medieval town.

“There’s a huge amount of trade on [North Main S], there’s very little vacancy, but people kind of feel like it’s forgotten about; it’s still a very vibrant street in terms of footfall, but what we’re trying to do is encourage the presentation of the buildings, to get an uplift for the street.

“The scheme isn’t just painting, it’s an assistance to try and incentivise people to look at improvement works.

“Some of the buildings [on North Main St] are so old it may cost more to do than it would on a new build — you can’t just decide to remove a cast iron gutter and replace it with PVC, so this is just to help people with that.

“Pat McDonnell Paints are partnering with us on this as well, and the benefit of doing that is we’re also tapping into their experience and knowledge. They will be able to look at the quality of paint, and the type of paint, to make sure it’s the most appropriate for the building facade itself.”

Applications

Applications to the scheme can be submitted via email to Cork City Council until 5pm on April 25.

Completed application forms can be emailed to: core@corkcity.ie or sent to the Planning Policy Section, Planning & Integrated Development Directorate, Cork City Council, City Hall, Cork.

For further information, or to download the application form, visit: https://tinyurl.com/5n6w2zxe.