Cork City Council to acquire derelict North Main Street eyesores

62-65, North Main Street, Cork, have come to symbolize the blight of dereliction in the city and beyond. Picture Denis Minihane

Four derelict buildings which have come to symbolize the blight of dereliction in Cork city have been lined up for compulsory acquisition.

Cork City Council has formally triggered the legal process to acquire the adjoining buildings at 62, 63, 64 and 65 North Main St under Section 14 of the Derelict Sites Act 1990. The buildings have all been listed on the derelict sites register since 2015.

The council has also moved to acquire two other long-term derelict buildings, linked to the same owners, elsewhere on the city’s historic spine.

Green Party Cllr Dan Boyle said he was delighted with the move and described it as a “significant attempt” on the part of the council to deal with the scourge of dereliction.

“The council is making use of powers which it has tended to see as a last resort. In my view, we need to make better use of these powers.” 

“By taking on these buildings, the council is making a statement that the worst excesses of dereliction can no longer be tolerated and the message it sends out is that if owners are not making use of these buildings, then the city will,” he said. And despite the cost to the local authority of such a legal move, Mr Boyle said the medium to long-term benefits should outweigh the costs, in terms of protecting the streetscape and acquiring potential development sites.

The derelict facade of the buildings pinned in position behind hoarding on North Main Street, in 2019.

Derelict sites register

The four buildings at North Main St were owned by David O’Connor and Bryan O’Connor when they were placed on the derelict sites register in December 2015 but they are now listed as being in the hands of a receiver.

The council has also moved to acquire two buildings, at 118 and 119 Barrack St, which were owned by David O’Connor when they were placed on the register around the same time.

The move to compulsorily acquire the four North Main St buildings comes almost two years on from the partial collapse of number 63, which led to the erection of large external steel A-frames to prop up the facade.

That required the installation of hoarding around the A-frames and the closure of a section of public footpath for over a year.

As the situation dragged on across last year, City Hall faced criticism from local traders but insisted that they were pursuing every legal avenue available to hold the building owners accountable.

The scale of collapse to the rear of 63 North Main St in 2019.

Despite extensive engagement with them and their legal and engineering representatives, the council eventually had to step in last summer to undertake and fund extensive building stabilisation works which allowed for the reopening of the public footpath.

The work involved the relocation of the external building supports within the footprint of number 63.

The publication of the compulsory acquisition notices gives any owner, lessees or occupier (except for a tenant) of the affected buildings a month to make a written submission to the local authority objecting to the compulsory acquisition.

The buildings cannot be acquired by the local authority without the consent of An Bórd Pleanála.

There are currently 93 sites listed on the city council's Derelict Sites Register.

Upper North Main Street was closed in the summer of 2019 to facilitate the work on No. 63-64, which partially collapsed.  Picture: Damian Coleman

They include one site on Cornmarket St which has been on the register since 1993 and another on South Main St which has been on the register since 1998.

Other high-profile sites on the register include the former Moore's Hotel block, which is earmarked for development, and Vernon Mount House and associated lands which was added to the register in March.