How Cork's St Kevin's will be transformed into a ‘vibrant residential community’

The Land Development Agency has received planning permission for 266 homes and an enterprise centre at the former St. Kevins Hospital in Cork. Picture Dan Linehan

It’s not often the northside gets to look down on the southside, but whoever ends up living in the high reaches of Shanakiel, on lands once home to a now-derelict Victorian mental asylum, will have, arguably, the best city view in Cork.

Clearance from An Bord Pleanála earlier this week — once 36 conditions are met — for the Land Development Agency (LDA) to press ahead with plans for substantial residential development at the former St Kevin’s Hospital site in Sunday’s Well promises to transform what has long been a defunct, derelict resource. Currently used only by grazing horses and talented graffiti artists, it is set become what the LDA describes as “a vibrant residential community”.