Just 3% of derelict sites levies have been collected by Cork City Council so far in 2021
Fresh information on derelict site levies, parking fines and littering fines come from the local authority's chief executive report.
Of €1,748,390 worth of derelict site levies issued in Cork city so far in 2021, just €51,800, or 2.96%, has been collected, according to Cork City Council’s Chief Executive Report.
30 new derelict sites in 2021 had files opened on them by Cork City Council in the first half of the year, while just five sites were taken off the derelict register in the same period.
93 crumbling city properties were on Cork City Council’s derelict sites register at the end of the second quarter of 2021, according to the report.
When a building is placed on the derelict sites register, the city is entitled to collect an annual levy of 7% of the land’s value from the owner.
Levies by the City Council are billed in arrears. The bill for 2019, which was issued in 2020, was for €1,120,875. Of this €606,375 was collected by the city.
In May 2021, Cork City Council billed €633,325 under the vacant site levy for sites that were deemed vacant in 2020. All outstanding amounts are being pursued according to Cork City Council.
The total number of derelict properties will likely surpass 100 this year, as 14 sites are in the process of being added to the register, according to the Chief Executive’s report, published on Monday, June 21.
Read Tripe+Drisheen’s two part feature on dereliction and vacancy in Cork city.
Parking fines: Pana and the Mall are black spots
8.5% of parking fines handed out within the past year in the city were on the main thoroughfare, St Patrick’s St, while 7% were issued on South Mall, the Chief Executive’s report detailed elsewhere.
A total of 25,370 on-street fixed charge penalty fines were handed out between June 2020 and May 2021.
2,139 fines were issued to motorists on St Patrick’s Street, while 1,767 were handed out on South Mall.
Read Tripe+Drisheen’s interview with Bad Parking Cork
In the past few months the number of parking spaces along South Mall has been further reduced, with the introduction of a two-way cycle lane running parallel to the footpath on the south side of the street.
Rounding out the top 5 locations were Corn Market Street (689 fines), Connaught Avenue/ Donovan’s Road (657 fines) and Lower Glanmire Road (595 fines).
Far and away the single biggest parking offence was failure to display a valid disc; 10,991 tickets were issued for this while less than 5% of fines (1,235) were issued for parking on a “footway.”
Failure to display a current license disc accounted for 3,375 fines, parking in a loading bay 3,245, and parking a no-parking zone attracted 2,451 fines.
Littering
April 2021 showed a considerable uptick in the issuing of litter fines by the city council. A total of 166 fines were issued, more than twice as many as March 2021. However, only 42 fines were paid that month.
April was also the first time this year that the council was involved in court cases for littering, but it lost all five prosecutions.
This article was edited on 22/06/21 at 1:41 p.m. to include a line on the cumulative nature of the outstanding dereliction levies.