A NEW layout for Bantry’s Wolfe Tone Square should be considered as part of the local authority’s plan to upgrade the town’s subterranean culvert system.
Plans for new culverts beneath New Street were unveiled at a public information day at the courthouse last October before going for a Part 8 planning process. The plan – called the Bantry Mill river Culvert Project – is to replace over 300m of existing masonry stone arch culvert with a reinforced concrete culvert.
Because the new system will be sealed, it will be more hydraulically efficient, and therefore offer some flood relief benefits.
At a meeting of the West Cork Municipal District (WCMD), Cllr Danny Collins (Ind) suggested that the project – which is likely to be carried out next summer when there is a low flow of water – would be an opportune time to redesign the layout of the town centre.
The project will necessitate the closure of New Street and will take three or four months to complete.
Cllr Collins said locals and members of the business community all agree that the works are necessary but he wants to see both sides of the town – New Street and Wolfe Tone Square – fully integrated as part of a new layout.
In tabling his motion, Cllr Collins asked if the Council will be contracting someone to come up with a new design.
‘The square is that little bit too big,’ said Cllr Collins, who suggested that when the contractor is ‘putting it back together’ they might take a bit off the plaza structure at Wolfe Tone Square and create 30 or 40 new car parking spaces outside the tourist office.
‘A lot of people think our square is beautiful but we need parking in Bantry,’ he said. ‘Take last Friday – the main fair day – parking was very hard to get in Bantry. People are parking here, there and everywhere and others have to park way out of town.’
Cllr Patrick Gerard Murphy (FF) said he wouldn’t be totally sold on changing the square but he said the footpaths are in dire need of an upgrade.
