Library Planning in Cork

I see the Cork library fiasco rumbles on.

Prior to the end of the last City Council term, the councillors voted in favour of closing St. Mary’s road library (on the north side of Cork city) and relocating to another purpose built building – this was assumed to be nearer to Blackpool.
After the local elections, and as news that City manager Joe Gavin had done a deal with the developers of Blackpool Shopping Centre started to emerge, there was widespread disquite from locals and newly elected councillors about what was going on.
A period of ‘consultation’ was implemented which led to a number of votes being taken by the city council which rejected the move to Blackpool Shoping Centre – the rent was going to be 100k a year for the non-purpose built building with no ground floor frontage. There was anger that a local service was being ‘removed’ from one area to be given to another area.
Joe Gavin alerted councillors that to pull out of this deal (which he had negotiated with out consultation) would leave the council open to a penalty of up to 300k if the developer chose to take action. Despite this, councillors last night voted again not to allow St. Mary’s Road library to close and move to a converted retail unit.
After last nights council meeting, Joe Gavin vowed to use his executive powers to force through the closure despite numerous votes by democratically elected representatives against such a course of action.
I imagine this will continue to rumble on.