Cork city needs to more ‘developable’, says O’Flynn

Developer Michael O’Flynn has said more needs to be done to make Cork as attractive for development as other urban centres.

He said the city centre in particular had suffered because too much of what it possessed was lost to the suburbs.

He said he would not criticise his fellow developers who delivered badly needed shopping centres on the outskirts of the city.

However, he said the city council should have been more “guarded” about scale of change that was allowed.

He said its policies had created a situation where it was better for some businesses to locate outside the city centre and this should not have happened.

“I question a lot of the developments that has taken a lot of the business out of the city centre,” he said.

Mr O’Flynn said he believed in a strong city centre and while the suburban development had served the wider Cork environment, it should not have been allowed to cannibalise the core.

“You have to have a strong city centre in a region, in any region, and I think the outside developments were essential for the wider cork region,” he said.

“But I think preserving the core of the city wasn’t the priority it should have been.”

He said at this moment more needed to be done to make Cork city “developable”.

Mr O’Flynn was speaking on Red FM after he and his brother successfully challenged the appointment of receivers to companies within the O’Flynn Group.

In late July, Blackstone, which bought €1.8bn of his companies’ loans from Nama, and moved to force his group into examinership by dramatically calling in his personal loans.

However, on Wednesday the High Court ruled that Blackstone’s application had been allowed because key information had been withheld from the Court.

Ms Justice Mary Irvine said the O’Flynn brothers should be allowed remain in control until a full hearing takes place in October.

Mr O’Flynn will have to repay €235m to Blackstone by the end of this year and has said this can happen if the terms of the arrangement he had agreed with Nama are honoured.

Blackstone has disputed the validity of this agreement.

Mr O’Flynn also said he remained anxious to work with his lender.