Griffith College Cork facing calls to remove pitch from landscape preservation zone

Green Party Cllr Oliver Moran said Griffith College Cork should now remove the pitch and restore the land to its former state.

Griffith College Cork is facing calls to restore an area of urban forest it cleared from a landscape preservation zone after it was refused planning retention for an astroturf pitch built there without permission.

A key biodiversity report that informed Cork City Council’s decision to refuse to grant planning retention to Griffith College Cork for the pitch, said the pitch and the previous habitat of urban forest, which it cleared from part of its Cork city campus in 2018, “could have existed beside one another” and provided habitats for the students to explore and for recreational use.