Cork City Council aims to secure €20m loan for footpath repairs

Cork City Council is set to apply for a €20m loan facility to fund a massive programme of footpath repairs.

If it is approved, the council will then draw down an initial tranche of €4m to give city councillors on each of the city’s five local area committees (LAC) an €800,000 war-chest for footpath repairs in their area.

A list of priority locations is being prepared and a draft schedule will be brought to the LAC meetings for approval in the coming weeks.

However, the creation of the larger €20m loan facility will allow for further draw downs in the years ahead to meet what council chief executive Valerie O’Sullivan described as “strategic investment needs in line with any additional financial capacity deriving from future budgets”.

Chair of the council’s finance committee, Fianna Fáil Cllr Sean Martin, who has been advocating for the footpath repair loan for some time, welcomed the move.

But he said work is ongoing to convince government to change the strict spending rules governing the allocation of millions in active travel funding which can only be spent on building new footpaths and not on repairing or reinstating existing footpaths.

“We seem to have loads of money to do the ‘jam and cream’ but we’re not doing ‘the bread and butter’. Footpaths are active travel infrastructure and we should be able to spend some of that funding on repairing existing footpaths, not just building new ones,” he said.

The state of the footpaths was a major issue on the doorsteps during the local elections last June.

Mr Martin proposed the loan idea shortly afterwards. The Irish Examiner reported in January that officials were examining the proposal in detail. And on Tuesday, Ms O’Sullivan brought a report on the matter to the council’s corporate policy group (CPG).

She said as the council’s 2025 budget was being prepared late last year, councillors highlighted the need “to address the substandard condition” of many of the city’s footpaths, and that in September, council approved an increase in the Local Property Tax to go towards the servicing of an initial €4m draw down.

“The scale and duration of the programme of works needed to meaningfully impact in improving the footpath network will be considerable and in recognition of this the council will pursue potential avenues for additional national funding, including under the active travel investment programme,” Ms O'Sullivan said.

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“In addition, members will be aware of the need in the city centre for renewal and resilience, I think it is prudent at this stage to plan for some level of additional investment in the city centre.” 

She recommended the council apply to the department of local government for approval to borrow €20m for renewing footpaths and public realm works in the council's administrative area, with an initial draw down of €4m. The CPG backed the report which will now go before full council next Monday for approval.

Mr Martin said applying for such a large loan demonstrates City Hall's commitment to address the issue.

“Sitting on our backsides and doing nothing isn’t going to solve the problem with our footpaths. We are better off doing something about it,” he said. “This shows that the city council is being proactive on this issue and it will hopefully encourage the State to provide funding.”