East Cork cycleway ‘will kill our businesses’, say creche and food store
Fitzpatrick’s food store in Glounthaune employs 77 people and is the only supermarket in a village that is rapidly expanding, according to fourth-generation owner Kerri O’Neill.
The owner of the only food store in one East Cork village is petitioning the county council to make changes to the Dunkettle to Carrigtwohill cycleway, claiming the development has halved parking spaces for customers, causing the store to lose business.
Just next door, the owner of the village’s creche, where 68 children attend every day, is equally worried about the impact of the cycleway on her business, as she is unsure how parents will be able to safely drop off and pick up their children.
Kerri O’Neill, the fourth-generation owner of Fitzpatrick’s food store in Glounthaune, has amassed over 1,000 signatures calling on Cork County Council to change the width of the cycleway outside of the shop. She says the shop was down €60,000 in turnover last month due to parking difficulties in the carpark, which has been on a section of council-owned roadside for the last 80 years.
“We are asking the council to pinch the section of the cycleway to the front of the shop in by one metre, to allow some breathing room for customers to reverse, making it safer.
“There have been four incidents in the carpark in the last month as people are having difficulty getting in and out. It is becoming a real deterrent for customers, and we’ve seen a huge drop off in our business since construction started,” she added.
Kerri and her siblings grew up in a flat above the old Fitzpatrick’s food store, back when the Junction bar was next door. In 2018 the O’Neill’s applied for planning permission to knock the bar and expand the shop with 18 car spaces out front. At that time the cycleway was in the pipeline, but firm plans hadn’t been drawn up.
Kerri said that after two years of construction that saw her borrow €2.5m to fund the expansion, leaving her with €18,500 in monthly repayments, plans for the cycleway were published which allocated 12 parking spaces to the store, with four additional spaces across the road.
“In January of this year, they came back and said that having measured the area properly, we were going to have just nine spaces out front. Since then, I’ve been locked in an exhausting battle to have a few small changes made to increase our parking and secure the future of this business.
“I can’t understand why the council is doing this to a local business that employs 77 people and is the only supermarket in a village that is rapidly expanding,” she said.
When council workers arrived to begin construction this year, Kerri used vans to barricade the area with the help of local suppliers, and only agreed to move after the council agreed to 12 spaces.
“Desperate times call for desperate measures.
“There are a large number of families moving here and it’s unrealistic to think that all of them are going to be cycling to the shop,” Kerri said.
Irene Heredia owns Generation Education, the creche next door to Fitzpatrick’s – she says the loss of parking space that the cycleway will cause will be “a really huge disadvantage” for her business, though the cycleway is being pinched in by 1m outside of the creche to get bikers to slow down.
“It is something that's even looked at by inspectors when we have them visit the setting, it's so important that children can be dropped to school safely and if the parking outside goes, it will have a very negative impact for us. There's no real alternative around the area and during the colder months, it's very handy to have easy parking outside the school. It also negatively affects parents who find our location very convenient on their way to work.
“Ultimately I think we'll also see a loss of enrollments if the parking goes,” she added.
Irene says she hopes that “something can be done” to accommodate businesses in the community.
Glounthaune is a small village with a population of just over 1,400 people, but thanks to the village's excellent railway connectivity it is due to grow into a town in the next five years with multiple Strategic Housing Developments in the pipeline.
Local Councillor Anthony Barry says that the cycleway will be a fantastic amenity for the local community that has gone through an extensive public consultation process, but that the argument about Fitzpatrick’s carpark does highlight the need for increased facilities to cater for the growing community.
“The cycleway will have a hugely positive impact on the communities it is going to connect and there are plans for it to stretch all the way to Youghal, we have seen how successful the Dungarvan greenway has been and it is great to see this kind of change taking place in Cork, but when you make big changes you are always going to discommode some people.
“I have been down to Fitzpatrick’s two or three times in the last week, and I found it manageable. Now it’s still a building site outside so I think people will find it easier when works are complete. This cycleway hasn’t come out of the blue, and I do think the carpark will be safer than the layout that was there before, because it had no structure,” Mr Barry said.
The councillor has said that he is, however, concerned about the rate at which community facilities are growing in the area, as it doesn’t match the increase in population.
“There is a wider issue here. The village has one pub, one shop, the community centre operates out of the national school. The council’s development plan actually earmarked an area for the development of new facilities, but An Bord Pleanala (ABP) has just given the green light for that area to become another strategic housing development (SHD).
“There are plans for a new creche in the Harper’s Creek development, but even then, I don’t see how we will have enough childcare and medical facilities to cater to everyone in the immediate locality. Yes, Carrigtwohill is a few miles down the road, but it’s already hard to see a GP here,” he added.
Glounthaune Sustainable Development Committee chair Carol Harpur said that in the last seven years the number of dwellings in the village has gone from 506 to 824, and that ABP’s recent decision to grant permission for the Ballynaroon Lands SHD to build 112 residential units will by no means be the last major development in area this year.
Darragh Taaffe, partner at Keane Mahony Smith auctioneers and estate agents, was the selling agent who oversaw the purchase of 38 housing units as part of the Lackenroe development. He said that the houses sold out without being officially advertised on the open market.
“We were hit with an avalanche of enquiries. The houses sold out very quickly and everyone had moved in by last September,” he said.
“From our perspective, the cycleway will make Glounthaune even more attractive to young families. It’s the kind of amenity that we would put on a brochure next to the train station and the local restaurant; it improves people’s quality of life,” Mr Taaffe added.
Plans for a further 289 units on land adjacent to the original Lackenroe housing estate, submitted by a different developer, were shot down by ABP in April of this year as the board said that the locality didn’t have the road network needed to support the development.
Cohalan Downing director Susan Tyrell, who oversaw the sale of 170 houses within the Harper’s Creek SHD, says that purchasers cannot speak highly enough of the cycleway as an amenity.
“50 families have moved in so far as building is only halfway through, and plenty of people have told me that they are commuting to work via the cycleway and then the train which takes them on to Penrose Docks, or wherever they work in the city,” she said.
The section of the cycleway that has been completed connects Ftizpatrick’s foodstore and The Elm Tree bar and restaurant. General manager Eoin O’ Connor says that it has increased passing trade and increased the number of families dropping in for a bite to eat.
“We have to commend the council on the job they have done with that stretch of the cycleway, it’s beautifully done and decorated with flowers.
“We have 100% noticed that it is bringing in a different kind of customer, as young families are taking a walk along the cycleway and then calling into us, it really has made a difference,” he added.
Cork County Council has issued a statement apologising for “any inconvenience” caused by ongoing construction works, adding that they are “confident that when completed, this much-welcomed cycleway will be of significant value from an economic, social and environmental perspective.”
The council stated that they obtained planning permission for the pedestrian and cycle route and that they engaged with stakeholders along it from Bury’s Bridge to Carrigtwohill, “including Fitzpatrick’s Shop."
“Engagement has continued throughout the detailed design and construction stages and is ongoing,” they added.
The interurban cycleway will connect Dunkettle to Midleton once completed, and then on to Youghal via the Midleton Youghal Greenway. Planning permission for the remaining 2.6km of the route to Midleton still needs to be obtained.
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