Monard oral hearing: Day One - Revised plans to build new Cork town

For the second time in three years, An Bord Pleanála is examining controversial plans for a proposed new town with over 5,300 houses which Cork County Council seeks to develop 6km north of Cork City.

The council has put forward revised plans for the new project in townlands around Monard, near Blarney, for which permission had been previously refused by the planning appeals’ body in 2012.

Senior council planner Nicholas Mansergh told the hearing yesterday, in the Metropole Hotel in Cork, the town’s location would promote sustainable travel as a €4m commuter railway station could be built on the site, adjacent to the Cork-Mallow rail line.