Council plans for ‘super-halting site’ rejected

CITY officials have been forced back to the drawing board after their plans to expand a Traveller halting site on Cork’s northside were shot down.

City councillors voted overwhelmingly against the extension of the council’s official Travelling halting site at Spring Lane on Monday after a raft of local opposition. The official site has 10 bays where conditions have been described as “horrendous”.

A report to council last September revealed that “an unauthorised subsidiary site” had grown around its perimeter with about 23 families, mostly relatives of existing tenants, living on land around the official site.

The report said the situation is no longer tenable “as the families on the periphery have only very limited toilet facilities and rely on the goodwill of their relatives in the bays for shower facilities”.

Officials said they had consulted with the families and most had stated a preference for halting site accommodation in the short-term, in the immediate neighbourhood, in order to access schools, church, doctor and other supports.

The council drafted plans to rezone a one hectare site, known as Ellis Yard, alongside the official halting site, from light industry and related use to residential, local services and institutions, to allow for the construction of a 20-bay temporary Traveller halting site.

The council then entered into public consultation with local residents on the plan and received 180 submissions — just six were in favour of the extension.

Residents raised issues of burning rubbish and sulky racing. Several local people attended Monday’s council meeting and applauded councillors who spoke out against the extension.

Cllr Catherine Clancy (Lab) said an extension was not the solution.

FG’s Cllr Patricia Gosch said if the council was serious about integration, then Traveller families should be accommodated around the city.

Cllr Kenneth O’Flynn (FF) said Spring Lane was one of the worst-maintained halting sites in the country but said an extension would merely result in a super-halting site.

Sinn Féin’s Cllr Thomas Gould said if the council could not manage 10 bays, then it should not be extending it to 30.

The proposed extension was voted down by 21 votes to four.

City officials now have to consider other options to ensure the council fulfils its statutory obligations.