Limerick Docklands ~ Ted Russell Docks

Limerick Docklands Initiative – January 2005 (Limerick City Council)

The Limerick Docklands Initiative* appointed the team of Consultants to prepare an Economic Strategy for revitalising Limerick Docklands and to describe in physical terms the Vision and Strategies required to achieve its implementation.

The Master Plan highlights the key issues to be addressed and the key tasks to be undertaken to achieve a market influenced regeneration of the Limerick Docklands. It is a blueprint for the integration of the Docklands area into the Urban fabric of Limerick City Centre, focusing on a detailed response to the “Inner Zone” of the Port area of c.18 hectares.

Other important sites include:. Greenpark – former Limerick Racecourse Site . Bord Gais Site. Kerry Group Lands (formerly Cleeves)The implementation of the Limerick Docklands Initiative is essential to establishing Limerick as a true Gateway City in the National Spatial Strategy

(LIMERICK CITY COUNCIL, SHANNON DEVELOPMENT, SHANNON FOYNES PORT COMPANY)

Docklands Local Area Plan (Limerick City Council)

Docklands Local Area Plan – Notice of commencement

Limerick City Council has commenced the preparation of the Docklands Local Area Plan for the period 2007 – 2013.

To assist in the preparation of the plan, a preliminary study “The Docklands Initiative” has been prepared. Members of the public and interested organisations who wish to have an input into the preparation of the plan are invited to make submissions on the study document and any other issues.

All submissions should be made in writing to the
Planning and Development Department Limerick City Council City Hall Merchants Quay Limerick or by e mail to plandev@limerickcity.ie.

The last day for receipt of submissions was Friday August 25th 2006.

Copies of the Docklands Study are available for inspection and purchase at the Planning and Development Department, Limerick City Council, City Hall, Merchant’s Quay, Limerick during office hours.

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RE-INVENTING LIMERICK DOCKLANDS COMPETITION (Murray O’Laoire)

Client: Limerick City Council / Shannon Development / Shannon Foynes Port Company

Limerick City Council / Shannon Development / Shannon Foynes Port Company
In association with a team of economists, engineers, transport specialists and planners, Murray O’Laoire Architects prepared an approach to a strategic development plan for the Docklands area of Limerick City.

Limerick Docklands represents a key expansion area for Limerick City which necessitates a forward-thinking and co-ordinated development proposal to ensure a phased and regulated expansion approach. The Team proposed a knowledgeable yet innovative approach to advancing a strategic solution for the development of the Docklands.

It detailed such issues as strategic site objectives, development guideline principles, linkage opportunities, public open space networks, infrastructure requirements, all of which would support and contribute to the proposed development.

The approach adopted for the realisation of a strategic development plan promoted an overall Master Plan as an intrinsic element of the market analysis, reflecting and ordering the demand trends emerging from this analysis, promoting a well designed and economically viable extension to Limerick City.

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Limerick Dockland Masterplan (Povall Worthington)

Mixed-Use Development by Povall Worthington in Ireland

Limerick dockland masterplan project, Republic of Ireland

Mixed uses proposed include: leisure, apartments, hotel, conference, retail, office and open public space. Building heights vary with the tallest positioned by the riverside. An existing mill building is marked for conversion and a historic stone clock tower relocated to tie in with new landscaping.

Client: Belfast Office Properties Feasibility completed: 2006

Limerick Dockland Masterplan images / infomation from Povall Worthington

Shannon Foynes Port Company

This image was used as a sales pitch to sell their Limerick Port facilities.

God almighty … is there no cop-on in this city at all!? Who is going to fill these high-rise apartment blocks and offices? Unless it is done to a very high standard, then this is just going to be tenement land, akin to Steamboat Quay and Mount Kenneth. Also, i’d like to know what is driving this. Tax breaks? If so, the plan is doomed already.

@zulutango wrote:

. . . . Also, i’d like to know what is driving this. Tax breaks? . . . .

I did not mean to give the impression that this is new, the master planning, competitions or proposals to move the port downriver have been circulating since 2005. Only the first post is new, the rest is old material.

Competition entry for the regeneration of the Limerick Docklands (Wilson Architecture)

Pity there are no details to the numbered items in their images below.

it’s just not something the city needs, and it’s arguable (unlikely, in my opinion) as to whether it will turn out as intended. The developers and architects are not responding to demand at all, hence my suggestion that tax breaks may be the driver of these and other projects. There appears to be a total disconnect between supply and demand in this city actually, and the consequences, as we have seen before, are dire.

LIMERICK DOCKS REMAINS PART OF OUR FUTURE (live95fm)

02 February 2010

The Shannon Foynes Port Company say Limerick Docks remains a core part of their operations.

City Councillors have raised concerns in recent weeks that efforts may be continuing to have the docks closed for private development.

The Shannon Foynes Port Company proposed selling off the city port in 2005, a move that was strenuously objected to by councillors at the time.

The city docks account for just 5% of the 10 million tonnes of cargo handled at Limerick ports annually.

The Interim Chief Executive at the port company Patrick Keating says, however, that the city port is very much part of their future:

Looks like as if we can mothball this thread for the time being.

@CologneMike wrote:

[…] proposals to move the port downriver have been circulating since 2005.

Actually, they’ve been circulating since the seventeenth century:

“For one observer [1675], Limerick’s port was too far inland for it to be one of the centres of the country’s general trade. Others [1746] stated that the port was difficult to navigate without local knowledge, while others complained of occasional adverse winds from the southwest that prevented ships sailing down the estuary to the sea. It was for this and other reasons that it was proposed in 1691 and 1781 to import and export goods from Tarbert, located further down the estuary [1781]. Baron Willes stated that adverse winds created additional expense for merchants, and concluded that this was the chief reason why Limerick was ‘not very great for foreign trade’ [1760].”

– from David Fleming “Limerick’s eighteenth-century economy” in Liam Irwin, Gearoid O Tuathaigh and Matthew Porter eds *Limerick: History and Society* Geography Publications, Dublin 2009. I have inserted the dates of the material cited in the footnotes instead of including the footnotes themselves.

My own view is that the floating dock should be turned into a marina.

bjg

@bjg wrote:

– from David Fleming “Limerick’s eighteenth-century economy” in Liam Irwin, Gearoid O Tuathaigh and Matthew Porter eds *Limerick: History and Society* Geography Publications, Dublin 2009.

Very informative chapter on that period.

@bjg wrote:

. . . . . while others complained of occasional adverse winds from the southwest that prevented ships sailing down the estuary to the sea.

Amazing, one would think that the sailing ships leaving the city back then would have benefited from the flow of the river current.

Still though in the next century others saw a future for Limerick port despite its shortcomings, there was an interesting plan for a “super floating dock” back in 1833. It seems that they intended to build a dam (weir) with locks, from todays Clarion Hotel side to the Westfields on the other side.

See Limerick Museum image.

I agree about Fleming’s chapter; it’s a pity it’s such a bitty book. I wanted it to be followed by a chapter on Limerick’s nineteenth-century economy, but there it wasn’t.

I think the problem with relying on the current was that it tended to propel vessels towards rocks. Have you read Honest Tom Steele’s *Practical Suggestions on the General Improvement of the Navigation of the Shannon between Limerick and the Atlantic, and more particularly of that part of it named by pilots, The Narrows. With Some Remarks intended to create a doubt of the fairness of not keeping faith with the Irish Roman Catholics after they had been lured into a surrender of Limerick, (their principal fortress), by a Treaty* (Sherwood, Gilbert and Piper, London, 1828)? It’s available (free of charge) on the interweb thingy and a very entertaining read.

The “super floating dock” was Thomas Rhodes’s suggestion, made (IIRC) after Alexander Nimmo had died; Noel P Wilkins in *Alexander Nimmo: Master Engineer 1783–1832* (Irish Academic Press 2009) said that other engineers feared that it might flood most of the city, so it was abandoned in favour of building quays.

bjg

I should have added in my last reply that you can’t steer a boat with the current unless you’re going faster than it is.

bjg

Ports Policy Review Invitation to make submissions (29th of October 2010)

The Department of Transport is currently undertaking a review of national ports policy. As part of thisreview interested parties are invited to make a submission to the Department.

National ports policy was outlined for the first time in a single document in the Ports Policy Statement published in 2005. The Department has prepared a consultation document, which provides a summary of the main elements of the Ports Policy Statement and an update on progress since then. The consultation document also provides commentary on current and expected challenges within the sector and poses a number of questions on current and future policy direction.

The consultation document is available to view at link

Ports and urban development

While the international trend toward ports moving downstream out of city centre locations is evident for many years in Ireland, many Irish ports are still located at strategically important waterfront city centre sites. There are numerous examples around the world of dockland sites being successfully redeveloped, the Dublin docklands being the most noteworthy example in Ireland. Various proposals have also been put forward for the development of other dockland sites in Cork, Galway, Limerick, Drogheda and Waterford. Proposals have also been put forward for alternative uses for Dublin Port’s estate.

While the current state of the property market has impacted on any such proposals, these sites present important opportunities for urban development and regeneration for the future. Such developments can provide a win-win situation for both the ports and the cities involved, by freeing up important sites for regeneration, whilst at the same time helping to fund new more modern port facilities within the region. From a ports policy perspective it is important that the need to provide replacement port capacity is taken account of as part of any dockland development plans. The ports need to work closely with all stakeholders in this regard, in particular the planning authorities, port users and local communities.
 
Questions

Q.23 Is there a case for amalgamation of some ports in light of issues such as the economic climate and recent enhancement of the road network?

Q.24 Is there a case for closure of some ports?

The Shannon Foynes Port Company was the result of an amalgamation and they have already made a failed closure attempt of the Limerick Port. So will we see it been reviewed again for closure?

Masterplan due for redevelopment of Limerick’s docklands

By Anne Sheridan (Limerick Leader)

http://www.limerickleader.ie/news/business/masterplan_due_for_redevelopment_of_limerick_s_docklands_1_3190288

THE REDEVELOPMENT of Limerick docks will be back on the agenda in the new year, when the Shannon Foynes Port Company publish their new masterplan for assets under its control.

The company are currently seeking submissions for their masterplan, which they state “will set out a vision as to how the port will evolve and be developed over the next 30 years.”

The closing date for submissions is November 4 next, and a draft masterplan is due to be presented to the public in the first quarter of next year.

Pat Keating, the new chief executive of the company, stated in their latest annual accounts that they have “many exciting projects in the pipeline”, and a key objective in their strategic plan is to complete a port masterplan.

“This is essential to facilitate the development of the port due to the length of port infrastructure lead times,” which he pointed out are up to seven years.

“We want to develop the Port of Foynes and continue operations at Limerick Docks in a planned manner where all views are taken into account,” they state.

Company chairperson Kay McGuinness said their plan for Foynes is drawn up, and they will now focus their attention on the Limerick docks and the Shannon estuary.

“The dock is still a core asset and in the areas around it there is room for development. There is not much development going on at the moment, but we need to have a plan that will marry the docks with the needs of the city,” she said