Pedestrianisation is good for people and good for business

ONE wonders if the traders who fear the pedestrianisation of Cork city centre have ever visited Covent Garden in London, Las Ramblas in Barcelona, Paris’ Plage or similar places in cities and towns everywhere in Europe.

Throngs of people stroll, linger, mingle, shop, eat and drink. There are street musicians and entertainers. People enjoy themselves and businesses thrive. Ireland’s squalid urban environment, in comparison, is dominated by the noise and fumes of traffic, with narrow irregular pavements, littered with parked cars and nowhere for pubs and cafes to place tables and chairs.

In the past, lack of imagination and the failure of councils to consult the public has resulted in schemes like Bantry Square, in Bantry, Co Cork, which have achieved the worst of all possible worlds. A million pounds were spent transforming the square, which served as a carpark and market place, into a giant roundabout with a soulless plaza in the middle, while the town’s broken-down pavements remained so narrow there is hardly space for two people to pass.