Businesses call for speeding up of Grand Parade project

THE opening of the Kinsale Road roundabout months ahead of schedule has again provoked business leaders to ask why a relatively minor city-centre project will take another 18 months to complete.

Cork Business Association (CBA) has called for a second shift to be introduced to speed up the €10 million revamp of Grand Parade after it was claimed some retailers were suffering a 40% fall in turnover.

CBA president Peter O’Donoghue said that his organisation recently had a meeting with city council engineers and contractors.

“There is still another year-and-a-half left in the project and we felt every effort should be made to introduce a second shift. We want to see people working under arc lights at 2am.

“They (the engineers) made the point that it’s more dangerous to cut cables at that time of the morning but work like this goes on at night in England and in Germany,” he said.

“That said, when it is finished, it will be a superb streetscape. The end product will be very good. But while it might cost a bit more to put in a second shift, there’s a lot of money out there in development charges at the moment which could be used to defray this.”

The Kinsale Road flyover, opened last week ahead of schedule and that the Fermoy bypass, which will open in October, will also come in well ahead of the original deadline.

When finished, the new Grand Parade plaza will feature a tree-lined colonnade dotted with stone seats, kiosks and a newly-landscaped area adjacent to the National Monument by Nano Nagle Bridge.

Cork City Council was unavailable for comment.