'No disgrace' in winding up so-called robot trees project, says Cork Lord Mayor

A senior member of Cork City Council’s executive has strongly defended the city’s controversial “robot trees”, which were removed at the weekend.

In August 2021, Cork City Council installed five ‘CityTrees’ in the city centre as part of a strategy to tackle air pollution across the city.

The 4m units, locally dubbed as “robot trees”, contained moss walls which, the council said, would filter pollutants from the air.

The devices initially cost €355,106 to install and were purchased under a Government funding package. The council previously said it had been paying maintenance costs from August 2022.

Last May, the council said it was engaging with third parties to evaluate the moss walls’ potential use in alternative indoor locations.

Just after 9am yesterday, councillors were informed of the decision to remove the robot trees, and by lunchtime they were gone, their wooden bases left in place to serve as benches.

The project was championed by David Joyce, then the city council’s director of operations. 

Yesterday, he told The Echo the trees had not worked as well as the council had expected, but they had not been a waste of money.

Director of services Mr Joyce said that while the project had not been as successful in removing pollutants as had been anticipated, it had not been a failure.

“This was a pilot project, it did succeed, it did prove that there was particulate matter taken out of the atmosphere, but one of the issues was there was only eight parts per million in the local atmosphere, so it was not highly polluted, but it did remove pollutants from the atmosphere,” Mr Joyce said.

He added that the moss walls would be placed in storage but could not say for how long.

However, councillors were told yesterday that the council would be partnering with “the UCC/MTU Joint Cork Centre for Architectural Education (CCAE) to explore a re-purposing of the structures”.

Existing seating will remain, the council said, with additional planting undertaken in both locations.

'No disgrace' in winding up project 

The Lord Mayor of Cork, Green Party councillor Dan Boyle, said he didn’t “think there’s any disgrace” in the winding up of the project, when similar trials had been completed across the EU.

“First of all, it was national funding, and secondly, [similar] experimentation that’s happened throughout Europe has been rowed back in several locations … and the conclusion has been reached that they don’t suit the purpose that was hoped for,” he said.

“You have to allow for expenditure that allows for innovation to occur … the whole point of innovation is that you try to achieve something, see if you can do it better, and sometimes it goes in the wrong direction.”

Sinn Féin councillor Kenneth Collins said Cork city centre had been left with “shabby benches that cost... €350,000”.

“Going forward I would be looking for more clarity in relation to value when purchases are being made,” he said.

“There are new planters going to go in instead of the robot trees, and that’s a positive move, as the city centre does need to be done up.”

Labour Party councillor John Maher said the removal had come three years too late, but had proved the project had been a waste.

“Let’s replace the robot trees now with real trees and new benches,” he said.

“I hope lessons are learnt, because we cannot allow this waste to continue.”