Cork City Council adds more sites to derelict sites registry, but fails to collect any levies in 2022
Fines for parking offences nearly doubled for the past 12 months with incidents of assaults and car theft increasing
Cork City Council is in the process of adding 52 sites to the derelict sites register (DSR). The total number of sites on the DSR now stands at 102 up from 88 at the end of 2021.
According to the latest figures released by City Council at the quarterly Joint Policing Committee, while more sites are being added to the DSR, no levies have been collected so far this year.
When sites are placed on the DSR, the council can place levies of 7% per year (up from 3% in 2020) on the value of the property.
The council continues to remove sites from the DSR through informal discussions, although the pace of its success on this front had slowed down considerably.
While the council was successful in resolving dereliction status of 31 sites in the last three months of 2021 - usually achieved through discussions with owners - the council had success with just five sites in this manner so far in 2022.
Parking offences
The City Council handed out nearly 40,000 parking fines for the 12 months between March 2021 and the end of February 2021. At 39,180 the total number of fines is nearly double that for the same period in 2020-2021 which covered rolling lockdowns.
St. Patrick’s Street continued to be the most ticketed area of the city, with 9% (3,269) of all fines issued on the city’s main thoroughfare, where restricted access has been brought in.
The South Mall, Connaught Avenue/Donovan’s Road near UCC, Grand Parade and Corn Market Street rounded out the top five most ticketed areas in the city. Failure to display a valid disc accounted for 45% of all fines.
In contrast, 153 fines were issued for the 12 months to the end of February 2022 for parking in or obstructing a cycle lane. Fines for parking violations were increased across the country at the beginning of February 2022.
Walking in and driving off
In figures produced by chief superintendent Thomas Myers, there has been a 320% increase in vehicle theft between 2021 and 2022.
While there were 15 reported cases of theft of a vehicle for all of 2021, so far this year there has been 63 incidents. Incidents of burglary have also increased considerably in 2021.
“The amount of houses that have been entered has been quite extraordinary at the moment,” Myers told the online meeting.
“In the past week, 50% of houses were unlocked, where people were able to go in and get keys of vehicles and take off into the sunset,” Chief Supt Myers said, reminding people to “lock up your property.”
There was also a noticeable increase in the number of assaults, both causing harm and what’s the police refer to as “minor assaults”. Both categories showed increases from 23 to 41, and 84 to 160 respectively.
Councillor Paudie Dinneen said the “perception now is that city is unsafe for people to visit.”
“Even though they’re minor at the same they could cause some apprehension for people to head into the city,” he added.
Responding, Chief Supt Thomas Myers said he thinks “Cork city is a safe place.”
“Compared to Limerick and Dublin, we’re in a good place.”
The police chief was speaking at the Joint Policing Committee meeting which takes place quarterly. The most recent data on everything from dereliction to parking fines and crime are released prior to the meeting which is chaired by the Lord Mayor and attended by senior members of the City Council executive and an Garda Síochána in Cork city. A mix of local and national politicians are also usually in attendance.
