Derelict sites notice served against car park owner in quay wall collapse
Cork City Council served a derelict sites notice to the owner of "Park It Here" in November to try to get them to respond to the quay wall collapse, Freedom of Information documents reveal.
The owner of a car park above a crumbling stretch of quay wall on the south channel of the Lee in Cork City has been served with a derelict sites notice, following months of inaction and three partial collapses at the same stretch of wall.
The collapsed section is within metres of Cork city’s oldest bridge, the South Gate Bridge, which was built in 1713.
A small section of wall first came loose in April, with further collapses in August and September, when a large hole also appeared in the tarmac surface of the car park.
The council insisted that the wall was private property and that repairs were not the responsibility of the local authority, but of the owners of the car park.
Documents sent to Tripe + Drisheen in response to a Freedom of information request reveal that on October 28, the council’s senior executive planner penned a recommendation that the car park wall be placed on the derelict sites register.
“I consider the property constitutes a derelict site per the definition set out in the Derelict Sites Act 1990,” he wrote. “Issues inclüde the neglected, unsightly or objectionable condition of the land. It contains dangerous or ruinous structures.”
On November 3, a senior Cork City Council staff member sent a derelict sites notice to the owner of the Park It Here car park, and a list of repair works that the council say the owner must undertake.
The owner of the site must “Fully repair and make safe as necessary” the section of wall, remove debris from the river, engage a chartered structural engineer to oversee the works, and ensure protection of the South Gate Bridge during all works, the letter said.
The property is not visible on the derelict sites register at the time of publication.
People served with a derelict sites notice have 28 days to respond to the notice.
“Worrying signs” since April
In internal email threads released under Access to Information on the Environment legislation, an executive engineer was warning other council staff of “worrying signs” of movement and writing that further deterioration could lead to a surface collapse as far back as April 23.
In May, the same engineer warned that “it may become a much bigger job should it deteriorate further.”
A flurry of emails were sent in response to media queries in August following a further collapse of the wall, and again in September.
Park It Here is a body corporate under the directorship of a Mr Mark Kenny, according to the Companies Registration office.
Land Registry documents show that two areas of the car park were transferred from the charge of Paul, Martin and John Kenny and Michael Pender to Allied Irish Banks in 2011, to NAMA in 2014 and to an entity called OCM Emru Debtco Designated Activity Company in 2016.