Cork city manager drops controversial plan to sell site

CORK’S city manager has scrapped a controversial tender to sell a prime publicly owned city site to protect the integrity of the process.

However, Tim Lucey defended the process and said the Deanrock site in Togher will be re-advertised once a reasonable time period has passed.

The official move to take the site off the market comes two weeks after furious councillors voted to halt the sale.

They accused city management of a “breach of trust” and claimed they were kept in the dark after reading about the sale first in this newspaper.

But in a special report to councillors at Monday night’s council meeting Mr Lucey defended his officials.

He said the invitation to tender for the 1.53 hectare (3.78 acre) site was published in the Irish Examiner on March 11. The deadline for tenders was April 1.

He said the disposal of property was a reserved function — performed by the elected members — and the advertisement did not in any way subvert this.

“Prior to any proposal to dispose of property being brought before council it is, however, the role of the city manager to ensure that an open and transparent process is followed in disposing of property, to assess responses to invitations to tender, and advise the council on the proposed disposal, and to ultimately bring a proposed disposal before council for consideration,” he said.

“In this regard, in order to advise council adequately, a necessary part of the process is to assess the market interest in the site, thus the commencement of the invitation to tender process.”

Any tenders which have been received will be returned unopened, he said.

The site has remained idle since 108 “eyesore” flats were demolished in 2007.

Mr Lucey said there had been a significant level of interest in the site from developers over the last 18 to 24 months.

Mr Lucey said it is still the council’s intention to develop the site for the benefit of the local community.