Glass boxes a threat to city’s character

THE column by Peter Levy headlined ‘Beautiful city can teach Cork a lesson’ (County supplement, June 2) should be prescribed reading for all in the Cork City Planning and Development Directorate whose role, according to their own website is... “to develop an overall physical development policy for Cork City supporting economic growth, an acceptable standard of living and a satisfactory physical environment for living and working”.

In his column, Mr Levy says “Cork city has an interesting cluster of 19th century red brick and stucco plaster buildings that should be kept and enhanced. However, I understand several old docks area buildings are already in the hands of developers who may have plans to erase them from the city map in favour of architects’ glass and steel ego trips”.

He goes on to make the point that Cork is now “over-shopped” and “over-officed” and a cool look should be taken at its prospects, post-economic crash. We have so much of our history — industrial, maritime and political — lying in unsuitable storage it is a shame some suitable permanent exhibition space cannot be found for it before it is destroyed and dumped.