Archive for the ‘Cork’ Category

« Older Entries

Serious safety risks to ALL users in the ‘Coolroe Meadows Active Travel Scheme’ proposed by Planning Department of Cork City Council

August 9, 2022

This post is about the proposed ‘Coolroe Meadows Active Travel Scheme’ by Cork City Council, with contributions from our friends and neighbours in Greenfields and Coolroe Meadows.

Contributors: Tim Butler, Greg Canty, John Cassidy, Kevin Cooper, Pat Downing, Tom Doyle, Maeve Murphy, James O’Brien, Elish O’Brien, Deirdre O’Mahony & Senan Power

9th August 2022

We would like to start this post with a positive note about Cork City Council:

Proactively promoting safe “Active Travel” should be encouraged and embraced.

However, any careless, desktop plan, that has not been researched properly, that will without doubt lead to huge safety risks for ALL users, as well as leading to congestion and inconvenience should be stopped.

This is not about voicing a concern, or an opinion.

This is about stopping Cork City Council from making a huge mistake and in the process putting people at risk, not to mention wasting money that could be used in so many other, much needed ways.

They won’t appreciate “the noise” that our community in Greenfields and Coolroe Meadows are making now, but in the long run they will hopefully appreciate the efforts that we are making to prevent a serious mistake, as mentioned already.

An Overview

For someone that isn’t familiar with the Greenfields/Coolroe Meadows estate:

Cork City Council want to install cycle lanes on both sides of the road through the estate, complete with bollards and in the process remove key road infrastructure, existing traffic calming measures, some green areas and 23 mature lime trees.

The road through our housing estates, which is much busier than any of us would like, joins the West side of Ballincollig (a few hundred metres up from the White Horse Bar and Restaurant) to Exit 2 of the Link Road.

The road from Coolroe Meadows (the village side) goes through to Greenfields (with a landscaped roundabout joining the two estates) and exits on either the Link Road, a poor back road to Ballincollig and another poor country road that leads to Killumney and beyond.

With the nature of this road it is a thoroughfare for cars, trucks and motorbikes, but not for bicycles, except for (in the main) any cyclists from the estate itself.

This might seem unusual, but when you consider where the road leads (at Greenfields side), being practical (and safe) very few bicycles will go or come from outside the estate.   

The need..

If there was a huge need for this cycling infrastructure the residents would welcome it with open arms.

There is not.

Cork City Council is trying to solve a problem that does not exist and in the process cause unnecessary problems that carry with them serious safety risks.

Many of the residents have been living on the estate for over 20 years and there has never been a problem. It is well laid out and there have been no incidents that any of us can recall.

We all welcomed the two electronic happy/sad face speed signs that have been successful in getting people to adhere to the 50km speed limit, which works well.

The Process

As well as the actual subject matter there were numerous flaws with the “consultation” process that was executed by Cork City Council for the Coolroe Meadows Active Travel Scheme.

Incorrect naming of the scheme

The title of the scheme is incredibly and carelessly misleading: ‘Coolroe Meadows Active Travel Scheme’.

Coolroe Meadows is one part of the housing estate, there is no mention of Greenfields, which is the other part.

Maybe, this was a careless oversight or it could be viewed by some as a deliberate act to mislead and not draw attention to the subject matter. 

We know that many of the residents of the Greenfields half of the development glanced at the incorrectly named development and concluded that it had nothing to do with them.

If anything, the whole estate is often referred to as “Greenfields” by all residents. 

Timing of the notice

The timing of the notice (issued 1st July, closes 2nd August) clearly coincides with peak holiday times for many people, which could be seen as quite a deliberate act, and certainly not one with the intention of informing all residents of the proposed development.

Quite a few residents are still completely unaware of this matter and many more require a fair and reasonable amount of time to be able to study this issue and be allowed to make a submission if they wish to do so.

Many of the residents who had “spotted” the notice and realising the dangerous consequences of it, resorted to calling door to door to alert their neighbours about the scheme. 

We produced our own literature at short notice, which was delivered to every house in the estate and we also erected signs throughout the estate to inform residents about the scheme.

It was clear from this process that many people were on annual leave. 

Website

The website for making submissions is not fit for purpose and in our view it discourages people from making a submission.

  • The submission portal crashes continuously and this was experienced by many residents that we spoke to
  • Requiring people to register and create a password in an age of GDPR is quite off putting
  • When people were making a submission, the website was reporting that there were zero submissions: most people felt that they were the only one making a submission, which made them feel that “they were the only ones” with an issue
  • The website quoted a 4pm deadline on the 2nd August for submissions while the accompanying literature quoted 5pm

As with everything else to do with this scheme, it was careless and certainly not fit for the purpose of allowing people to make submissions easily.

We are concerned that this will lead to a large amount of unsuccessful submissions.

Flagged

These issues were flagged with Councillor (and resident of the estate), Garret Kelleher who informed our group that any delay to the process would not be allowed by Cork City Council.  Another Councillor Colm Kelleher made a similar request to the Council and was also refused.

Andrias Moynihan TD, later informed the group that there would be an extension, but only a postal one. 

There was no advertisement to tell people in the estate that this deadline was extended and we learned that councillors who had requested an extension only heard that a postal one was granted through third party social media accounts.

The Proposal.

The proposal includes:

  • The removal of existing pedestrian crossings (with one poorly located replacement)
  • The removal of seven turn lanes (to individual housing estates)
  • The removal of medians
  • The removal of an existing roundabout
  • The removal of 23 mature lime trees

The proposal includes the installation of:

  • Cycle lanes on the road in each direction
  • Bollards to enclose the cycle lanes
  • Ramps at entrances to estates 

The proposal does not take into account:

  • Provision for the school buses

In the section below we will take each of these issues in turn and explain carefully why there is a serious issue with what has been proposed by the planning department of Cork City Council.

Removal of existing pedestrian crossings     

Currently, there are five pedestrian crossings along the Coolroe Meadows/Greenfields road.

These were developed to allow children to safely meet friends in other areas in the estates off the road and are also used by walkers who utilise the estates for recreational exercise, particularly in the evenings and at weekends.

These have worked perfectly for over 20 years and to the best of our collective knowledge there have been no accidents or issues.

It is user friendly and it works perfectly providing opportunities to cross safely in a number of locations.

Best practice – research has recommended that pedestrian crossings should be placed 80 to 100 metres apart in an urban setting, and that distances over 200 metres should be avoided.

The road is about 875 metres long so the two crossings in the proposal will be 400 metres apart on average. As well as being too far apart, neither of the two pedestrian crossings that are proposed are in the Coolroe Meadows section of this road and children use play areas on both sides of the road.

A person in Coolroe Meadows will not walk to Greenfields to cross the road. Once again, this plan was not thought out.

This proposal to reduce the five pedestrian crossings to two will increase the likelihood of pedestrians being struck along this stretch of road. Where pedestrian crossings are too far apart or where they do not facilitate the natural flow of people, pedestrians will decide to cross in a more direct, unprotected route.

Putting pedestrians at risk like this is careless in the extreme, and quite a backward step. 

The removal of seven turn lanes

Turn lanes provide additional physical separation between turning traffic that is slowing or stopped as well as traffic flowing in the opposite direction. Turn lanes have been shown to reduce crashes in many countries.

Essentially, the Coolroe Meadows-Greenfields road was developed as an estate road with many branches which became a major access road to Ballincollig due to the development of the Ballincollig By-Pass. 

The seven turn lanes reduce the chances of rear-end or sideswipe crashes along the road.

Cork City Council’s proposal to eliminate the turn lanes will increase the likelihood of rear-end crashes, stall traffic flow and cause traffic jams. Cork City Council  have not made any attempt at assessing the likely impact of their proposal on road safety in their report. 

Removal of road medians

The road medians work well with the lead up to turn lanes as well as separating traffic in each direction throughout the estate. This becomes very important at the pedestrian crossings, making these safer for those crossing the road.

The road medians also allow traffic some extra space if this is required to pull past a cyclist, to pull around a parked school bus, or in the event of an emergency vehicle, to allow extra space for them to easily pass by existing traffic on the road,

Effectively these provide extra road space should it be required and in doing so they make the road safer for all users.

The removal of the roundabout

The Greenfields roundabout at the centre of the estate facilitates a busy traffic pressure point, allowing traffic to easily and safely join the road from the housing estates at either side of the road.

The roundabout is very effective at slowing down traffic coming through the estate, allowing residents to safely join the road. The approaches to the roundabout incorporate a path, which also allows pedestrians to cross safely at this point.        

The removal of this roundabout would allow all traffic to pass through the estate quicker, putting all users at risk, as well as removing the existing opportunity for pedestrians to cross the road.

The replacing of the roundabout with a busy four arm junction is an extremely backward step, it is introducing a huge safety risk for all users, as well as huge inconvenience for all road users trying to exit or enter the estates at either side.

We refer to a European Commission Road Safety Report about junctions and roundabouts as follows:

[Junctions, at-grade or grade separated, are locations of high accident concentration. In most countries 40 – 60% of the total number of accidents occurs at junctions. Consequently, special attention should be given in determining the type, the shape of junctions, as well as the number of junctions along a road axis and the efficient design of each one.

The main objective of junction design is to increase convenience, comfort and safety while at the same time enhancing the efficient movement of all road users (motor vehicles, buses, trucks, bicycles, and pedestrians).

Junctions are intended to operate where vehicles often must share space with other vehicles and pedestrians. Negotiating a junction requires many simultaneous or closely spaced decisions, such as selection of the proper lane; manoeuvring to get into the proper position; need to decelerate, stop, or accelerate; and need to select a safe gap. 

An important safety aim is to match the speed at which drivers negotiate the junction with the complexity of the decisions to be made. This can be done, for example, by only allowing simple merging manoeuvres on high speed roads or by ensuring that drivers reduce speed on the junction approach (e.g. by deflection of path through a roundabout). Sight lines should provide drivers with sufficient information to make safe decisions, but not tempt them to try to select short gaps in conflicting traffic flows]

The report specifically mentions left turns (in an Irish context this would be right turns)

[It should be noted that left (right) turns are high risk movements on a level junction. Research results in Great Britain have shown that these movements (right turns in Great Britain) are responsible for around 70% of all accidents on three-arm junctions]

Please note that what is being proposed is an even more dangerous four arm junction.

The report proposes that in situations like this, a roundabout is a perfect solution that reduces risk:

[Converting junctions to roundabouts can improve safety and traffic flow. 

Roundabouts can contribute to road safety in the following ways:

  • Conflict points between the traffic streams are theoretically reduced
  • Roads users entering the roundabout have to yield to road users already in the roundabout, thus they are forced to observe traffic at the roundabout more carefully
  • All traffic comes from one direction
  • Left (right) turns are eliminated
  • Speeds are reduced, as drivers have to drive around a traffic island located in the middle of a junction

Roundabouts reduce the number of injury accidents depending on the number of arms and the previous form of traffic control. There appears to be a larger effect in junctions that used to have yield control than in junctions that used to be traffic controlled. Fatal accidents and serious injury accidents are reduced more than slight injury accidents]

Intuitively and from experience of the estate, we know that the roundabout was well designed taking into account the residents as well as the traffic passing through.

What has been recommended goes against all best practice – it is introducing a proven safety risk to replace a proven safety solution and it must be stopped.

The removal of 23 mature lime trees

There are 50 mature lime trees lining either side of the main road through Coolroe Meadows (from R608 to the roundabout at entrance to Greenfields) (48 limes on the west and 50 on the east side plus a few new recently planted ones, so ~100). Each tree is 7-9 m tall. They have circumferences of 50-90 cm at breast height and all are about 25 years old.

Ecological importance – These lime trees play an important ecological role in our urban estate. Lime leaves are eaten by the caterpillars of many moth species, including the lime hawk, peppered, vapourer moths which are found in the estate. These moths are in turn food for bats which are protected species. Lime trees are also host to very large numbers of aphids which extract sugar from the leaves. The aphids then excrete a dilute sugar solution as a liquid waste which honey bees drink (so important for local honey growers). The aphids are a source of food for many animals including other insects and birds (long tail tits are regularly seen feeding on the trees). Thousands of ants move up and down each tree trunk every day to milk the aphids and protect them from predators. These ants are also food for birds. 

Importance as a carbon sink – A lime tree of 9 m height and diameter of 26.5 cm has a total carbon biomass of 0.86 tonnes (including underground roots). As they are mature they will continue to sequester carbon dioxide from the atmosphere at much greater rate than any new young trees that are planted e.g. it will take ~50 young trees to grow for 1 year to capture the amount of carbon in one of these mature lime trees! The removal of 23 mature lime trees will potentially see all this carbon released back into the atmosphere as they break down.

Aesthetic and health effects – The 100 lime trees are visually very impressive as you walk or drive down through Coolroe and now these mature trees are an integral part of our civic space. But beyond the visual, many studies have now shown that even short-term exposure to urban green spaces (such as our road of lime trees) can reduce stress, increase positive emotions and mood, and increase mental and physical health. Even a quick survey any evening will show hundreds of people walking or running along past these trees. There is no doubt that Coolroe Meadows/ Greenfields estate is a place where people choose to exercise for improved mental and health reasons.

The introduction of “road” cycle lanes

The proposed road cycle lanes are just 1.5m in width.

The left 0.4m has drains which cyclists will need to avoid

If bollards are used (as part of the proposal), it would further reduce the usable space to the cyclist’s right as they would need to avoid contact with them. This would equate to approx 0.4 of further unusable space.

This leaves a safe width of only 0.7m, a typical cyclist cannot maintain this position so precisely.

If a parent is cycling with a child, it will likely result in the child in the cycle lane and the parent cycling in the car lane beside them.

If bollards are used it will also lead to dirt piling up in the cycle lane, as we can see wherever these are in place. The road sweeper will not be able to clean inside the bollards, which is already an issue outside Colaiste Choilm school in Ballincollig.

The dirt will become dangerous when wet and will further encourage cyclists to use the road.

As experienced cyclists will tell you,  a bad cycle lane is worse than no cycle lane.

Bollards as part of the cycle land infrastructure

We have already outlined the issues with bollards and why they are not a solution.

There are three further issues with bollards as part of this plan:

  • They prevent cars from pulling in for emergency vehicles (this is already an issue in the centre of Ballincollig)
  • They prevent school buses from parking to collect and drop off children
  • They are unsightly and are not appropriate in a residential setting

Introduction of ramps at the entrances to each estate

There is no need for any such interference with the roads in the estate, which functions quite well currently.

The faster moving traffic due to the removal of the roundabout, the removal of turn lanes and medians and the introduction of ramps, are collectively and disproportionately punishing the residents of the estate in favour of through traffic.

Entering and exiting their estates will be more difficult and will lead to increased risk taking, adding even more risk to this already poor plan.

Provision for a bus stop

There are school buses that stop between the entrances of the Fernwalk and Woodberry estates near the Greenfields roundabout. 

This serves as a collection point for children living locally, many of whom are dropped off by adults arriving in cars and parking nearby. The existing median, which the proposal would remove, has allowed passing cars to pass a stopped bus. 

The plan takes no account of this, confirming the lack of basic research that went into this plan.

General safety

During the course of over twenty years the estate has thankfully had an exemplary safety record, with no serious (or even minor) accidents that we can think of.

If there were genuine safety concerns the residents of Coolroe Meadows/Greenfields would be the very first to clamour for relevant improvements.

Existing cycles usage

As already explained the cyclists using the road network in the estate will predominantly be residents.

Of those surveyed adult cyclists use the road and will mainly use it to exit or enter the estate on the Coolroe Meadows side.

Cycle traffic is minimal and cyclists report that there are no issues, with the medians allowing for cars to safely pass, if the need arises.

Younger cyclists will mainly use the wide, low density footpaths on the estate, and in all likelihood will not exit from the estate onto the busier roads.

False Statements in the Proposed Plan

We wish to refer to a number of points in the Environmental Impact Assessment Screening Report

Risk of accidents: 

In relation to the risk of accidents the report states:

“As the development involves the upgrading of services, the risk of accidents should be reduced”

This statement is incorrect – Services have been downgraded, which increases rather than reducing risks as we have carefully outlined above.

The report states that the project “is unlikely to have a significant impact on the landscape of the area”

The removal of mature lime trees, grass verges, a beautifully landscaped roundabout and the introduction of plastic bollards will have a huge, and very unnecessary impact on the landscape, as well as damaging the environment and carbon footprint.

Summary

The Cork city Council ‘Coolroe Meadows Active Travel Scheme’ as proposed, is a careless desktop plan that was prepared with no proper research and one that goes against all best practice and road for road safety guidelines..

The plan is a poor attempt at solving a problem that does not exist, and in doing so it would not only destroy a well planned and well functioning road layout, but it would introduce significant safety risks for all users.

As well as being an extremely poor plan, there were also significant issues in the naming of the plan, the timing of the consultation and the IT systems to support the processing of submissions.

On behalf of the concerned residents of Coolroe Meadows and Greenfields we wish to state that it is our clear objective to reject this plan, and in doing so to prevent Cork City Council from making a serious mistake that will put ALL road users at risk.

Councillors

We are calling on all councillors to meet with us and represent our interests in this matter.

We are inviting councillors at their convenience to meet with a representative of the estate before the 24th August and walk the estate to fully understand the serious safety consequences of the proposed plan.

We have also invited councillors to attend a meeting of residents on the 24th August at Oriel House Hotel at 8pm.

Cork City Council Planning Department

We have also invited the planning department to attend the meeting on the 24th to listen to our serious concerns.

Contact Us

For queries or suggestions please email:

coolroemeadowsrs@gmail.com

Updates

We will update you with any extra information on this blog post including meetings and updates for Councillors and Planners.

Tags:, , , , , ,
Posted in Change Management, Cork, Parenting | Leave a Comment »

Just a Drop of a West Cork Story ..

September 3, 2020

Old Head KInsale

We were in the car all five of us on a Saturday morning, the last one of August, the last one of summer (I know it’s autumn, but I always consider August to be part of summer) taking a trip around West Cork.

The five of us was Dee and I, the two dogs Honey and Bert who have started to enjoy our summer excursions and Ayla, from New Zealand, my son’s girlfriend (he’s busy filming for Failte Ireland at the moment).

From a chat we had a few nights earlier we reckoned she hadn’t really experienced that wonderful part of Ireland, so this plan was hatched.

As usual, we totally underestimated the amount of time it would take to explore but we did manage to take in the Old Head of Kinsale and then a scenic coastal drive that included Harbour View beach, Timoleague, Courtmacsherry and Clonakilty via Ring.

The sun was shining and Clonakilty town was buzzing and we strolled through the town with our two four legged buddies, enviously looking at the patrons enjoying the selection of cafes and restaurants that were calling to us.

Eventually, the pangs of hunger and the gentle waft of a chipper called to us and we grabbed two bags of “proper” chips with some mouth watering, juicy, succulent chicken goujons from an immaculate place called the ‘Chunky Chip‘ and enjoyed those sitting on the grass on the green near Emmet Square.

Emmet Square, Clonakilty

Walking off those chips was a must so we headed on to Red Strand and then onto Long Strand at Owenahincha and went for a fabulous walk meandering through the sand dunes that go on forever and then onto the beach.

Owenincha

The dogs enjoyed the water, but did realise it wasn’t for drinking and we managed to sit for a few moments to enjoy a glass of white wine (Dee is always prepared!) looking out at the ocean, taking in all of it’s beauty and bidding farewell to this very strange summer.

Driving back home (there was a Liverpool match to get back for..) we were chatting about all sorts of everything including “wouldn’t it be great to live near the sea” which seemed to be the recurring topic of the day.

Throughout the journey we had the music playing with a mix of all our tastes along with the selection that the Spotify algorithm throws you and before we knew it we were listing to a fantastic song by one of my favourite bands, The 4 of Us, called “Just A Drop“.

I was able to tell Ayla and Dee (and the two dogs!) the story of the song, which not only brought it to life but it also gave them an insight into the character of the band and something that they could carry with them and tell others.

The reason I knew the story was because they told it to me via email.

Every week during “lockdown” the band have been sending an email featuring a different song, whereby they tell the story behind the song and they leave you with the gift of a free download.

This is the fantastic story behind the song in their own words:

Just A Drop. The story behind the song…

Dad was a big Johnny Cash fan and suggested, on more than one occasion, that our songs could benefit from a bit of the boom-chicka-boom rhythm that characterised Cash’s early recordings.

We eventually took up his suggestion, writing Just A Drop, for the Sugar Island album, as a tribute to him and his love for the Man in Black.

Before we recorded it, we headed home to Newry to play it for him.

“You are finally going to love a 4 Of Us song,” we told him.

To make sure he was in a suitably receptive mood, we bought some insurance – a bottle of his favourite whiskey.

He sipped a glass of it, relaxing in his favourite armchair as we played him the song.

Three minutes later, we waited to hear his opinion. He paused.

Then he looked up at us and said just two words:

“More whiskey.”

We insisted on playing it to him again, assuring him that sometimes it takes a while for a song to grow on you.

After three more performances – and three more whiskeys – he started getting into it.

So, if you don’t think our performance in the video below sounds anything like Johnny Cash, we understand.

But can we recommend that you combine it with a glass or two of Black Bush?

Brendan and Declan ❤

(you can watch the song on YouTube at the bottom of this post)

It’s such a very clever thing to do.

At a time when they can’t do gigs, they are still talking to us and what’s more, they are building a special bond and a connection that brings us closer to them and one that works when it comes to selling their music and their gigs.

It was nice to get an unexpected lesson in marketing from an unexpected source..

Are you taking the time to tell your interesting story?

Greg

Greg Canty is a Partner of Fuzion Communications, a full service PR, Graphic Design and Digital Marketing agency with offices in Dublin and Cork, Ireland

Tags:, , , , , , , ,
Posted in Brand Loyalty, Communications, Cork, Family, Friendship, Holidays, Ireland, Marketing, Music, Positivity, Tourism, Travel | Leave a Comment »

More beautiful music please..

May 14, 2019

Cork Youth Orchestra

It was another magical night in Cork as we watched the superb Cork Youth Orchestra perform with Altan and the Lee Singers at the majestic City Hall.

The performance by the orchestra was just spell bounding as we watched 128 talented young musicians play together, powerfully and passionately conducted by Tomás McCarthy.

It was moving, watching the different sections of the orchestra playing together, creating powerful, beautiful, uplifting music and I was reflecting on the huge feat that we were witnessing, the seamless coordination of so many young talented musicians.

Cork Youth Orchestra

There is huge credit to the conductor, the musicians and the proud parents who all played their role and while we just turned up to experience the special performance on the night, I can only imagine the amount of hard work and countless hours that must have gone into what we were witnessing.

You could feel the huge sense of togetherness on the night and you knew this was the magic ingredient, because without this togetherness the uplifting performance would not have happened.

It made me think about how much we can create and how much we can achieve when we come together with a beautiful, common goal.

I took a photo during the performance and at the interval I opened up Twitter to tweet about the magical evening.

As I was about to post I spotted a jarring tweet about a bombing in Pakistan, where gunmen had forced their way into a hotel and started shooting indiscriminately, leaving four hotel employees and a Pakistan Navy soldier dead. Six others were injured.

How can we come together and achieve such beautiful things and how can we be consumed by so much hatred that we can kill others?

More music please…

Greg 

Greg Canty is a Partner of Fuzion Communications, a full service Marketing, PR and Graphic Design agency with offices in Dublin and Cork, Ireland

Tags:, , , ,
Posted in Cork, Creativity, Family, Friendship, Inspiration, Music, Politics, Racism | Leave a Comment »

We have one brand, it’s called Cork!

October 25, 2018

Cork Brand Book

When the headlines in national papers about our thriving favourite place, read “Cork City Council slammed for spending €300k on rebranding design that’s similar to three other logos – and slogan has already been used too” you just get a little bit frustrated.

This same topic has been played out in local papers and on local radio as well as these national papers and it is really unfortunate as it comes from a great, positive, progressive decision from the various players in the region to come together and market our fantastic region as one.

The stark truth is we have to pool our resources and market as one, to avoid confusion, to achieve some consistency of message and to have any chance at all of making an impact in a competitive world where we are in the mix against much bigger regions with much bigger budgets!

Our work – The Cork Brand Book

I need to be very transparent here and tell you, the reader, that we were the local partner who worked with a talented team led by Roger Hobkinson from Colliers International in the first phase of this work, which delivered a ‘Cork Brand Book‘ for the region.

This really is a confusing area, and when I heard Pat Ledwidge from Cork City Council and Derry Cronin of Cronins Coaches trying to explain on mainstream radio about the investment in a ‘Place Brand‘ you have to forgive the respective DJs for not being able to understand what they were talking about and furthermore why all of this “stuff” seems to cost a large sum of money – to them and the general public, this just doesn’t make sense.

A strong communications strategy needs to be part of this work (that’s where we come in folks!!) to ensure that the work and investment is understood by everyone, but even with this it still is a little complicated as people just don’t and won’t get it.

Cork Brand Book 2

A brand is a logo….right?

During the course or our work we explained to all of our audiences that the brand book was not and would not be a logo. 

The brand book was the presentation of the “true story” about the region in a way that we felt would resonate with target audiences – for our work this audience was people who wanted to live in Cork, work in Cork, invest in Cork or start a business in Cork.

Our process was simple but yet very complex – we analysed the different audiences in the region to understand what were the attributes, the hard and soft things that they said made it a special place to live and do business in.

We researched the large FDI companies, the small start ups, the people from overseas who decided to make Cork their home – what was it about this special place that made them choose here and how could we weave this story to others in a way that made it a compelling proposition to them?

When our research was done we gathered all of those special attributes about the region and it was our role to collate and shape these so we could package them and ‘tell the story‘ in a way that would resonate.

When we had this ‘story‘ about the region drafted we tested it extensively with our audiences both in Ireland and internationally to see how it resonated.

Is the story we are telling about Cork compelling to you?

Would you invest or want to work and live in a place like this?

The result of this work was ‘The Cork Brand Book‘ which is still available to download and this outlines what we believe is special about the region and it is shaped in a way that is designed to resonate with our target audiences.

The simple idea once this work was done, was that all stakeholders when they are talking about Cork or describing it in their own marketing materials (website/brochures), would use this language – if all stakeholders talk about Cork in the same way then we will achieve synergy and a consistent message with audiences.

The process above took months with a team of us conducting research, facilitating workshops, meeting stakeholders, executing surveys, compiling findings and then writing, designing and testing along with many meetings with the client.

The process takes time to do it properly and this does cost money and we didn’t even get to design a logo!!

As a passionate Corkonian I was privileged to work on this project and for months there was an extra skip in my step in the realisation that we lived in a very special place and this was played back to us clearly by the many people, not from Cork but who chose to live and work here because they loved it.

Shaky Bridge

Next Steps

The controversy in the papers and on the radio about “expensive logos” and confusing brands was about Phase 2 of the Brand work.

Unfortunately our team (pretty much the team that did Phase 1 with one or two others) narrowly lost out on the tender for this phase and I must admit I was disappointed at a business level but I was gutted as a Corkonian.

I’m passionate about this beautiful, diverse region and I was really sad to see the contract going to others.

The tender assessment committee had a tough job and had to apply their criteria and at that time they decided that someone else was more qualified or skilled to take on this contract than our group.

Effectively the job in this phase for the winning team was to:

  1. Bring the Place Brand Book to life in a website and marketing materials
  2. Gather and maintain relevant metrics for the region
  3. Devise a detailed marketing plan to promote the region
  4. Execute this marketing plan
  5. Manage the brand with stakeholders
  6. Liaise with relevant stakeholders

We haven’t been involved in any of the process (I did offer!!) since our phase was completed so I can’t really comment on the work that has been completed but I can comment on point 1 above, which was the bringing of the brand to life – this is the website and the ‘We Are Cork‘ campaign.

The website features some great photography (this should bring the authentic stories to life for the reader) and compelling copy, which should tell the story of the region in a convincing way – the Cork Brand Book that we produced should be a good reference point for the content.

I think the website does a good job at delivering the messages of the region.

The ‘We are Cork’ name and logo (Collectively, The Brand Identity) were also devices developed as part of the work, which seems to be the part that has attracted all of the controversy with the media and the public.

These should convey a modern, vibrant, welcoming place with a warm, original heart – ‘Quality of Life‘ was without doubt the number one attribute that people loved about the region and this is something that the brand identity should try to convey.

Design is a very subjective area so I am not going to comment about the work here and I will also pass on the name for the same reason – I’m sure the team did their research and were satisfied that of the options they developed these were right for the purpose they were intended.

However, I don’t believe that the Place Brand ‘We Are Cork’ is for general consumption (a consumer brand) so I feel that part of the confusion was caused by seeing this appearing on signage around the city – this should be reserved for the consumer facing, Visitor brand, which in this case is ‘Pure Cork‘.

Unfortunately when you are explaining you are losing, and while it is easy to understand the reason for the different brands it does confuse these audiences when they see both brands and not the one that was intended for them.

€300K for a logo!!

Of course a logo didn’t cost €300,000, but unfortunately when you can only show people a website and a logo as the tangible results of the work then the City and Country Councils are an easy target and it is difficult for them to start talking about the value of developing a ‘Place Brand‘ in a way that the regular reader or listener will understand as I have already mentioned.

Take me to the Church

Beyond the Logo..

The most important thing now is that the work continues and that the other aspects of this phase of the tender come to life with tangible initiatives that promote the region to the target audiences.

As someone involved in the tendering process for this promotional phase it was clear that the budgets were very challenging and the region would have to excel with online promotion (it’s feasible on a tight budget) and it would have to be very laser focused as to the activities that it could realistically engage with.

More phases will have to come and these will require significant budgets if the region stands any chance of making an impact with audiences overseas.

I sincerely hope that all of the stakeholders stay brave, stick with the course and continue to invest in the promotion of the region.

This will involve working together, pooling the limited resources, harnessing the passion and energy, choosing some clever, laser focused initiatives to invest in and then letting it all happen!

Cork is a very special place with a very special story and it is a great place to work, live and visit.

Do we have too many conflicting and confusing brands?

We have one brand, it is called Cork and I love it.

Cork….#BigOnLife

Greg 

Greg Canty is a Partner of Fuzion Communications who offer Social Media Consultancy Services from our offices in Dublin and Cork, Ireland

 

 

 

Tags:, , , ,
Posted in Branding, Cork, Destination Branding, Marketing | Leave a Comment »

The Mother, the Mother-in-Law and the Queen

July 28, 2018

Pat O'Connell and The Queen, English Market

I just had to grab the man, with the heartiest and biggest laugh in Cork, Pat O’Connell for the latest episode of the Fuzion Win Happy podcast.

Pat, for those few who don’t know him is the famous fishmonger who is in that iconic photograph with a smiling  Queen, during her visit to Cork.

Pat runs the very successful Fishmerchants, K.O’Connell, in The English Market, which is now one of the popular attractions in Cork city for locals and visitors.

In the podcast I explored his early career and what it was like to grow up in a hard working, entrepreneurial family where his clever mum, Kathleen understood what was needed to differentiate your business.

While we all take the fantastic English Market for granted, Pat explains how this wasn’t always the case. Just like markets all over the world, it was a very functional, drab, market for locals, which opened a few times during the week and it required the clear vision of a few forward thinking people to change direction and evolve into the special place that we experience today.

Pat’s story is one of a family business and succession. His mum, an early female entrepreneur with a gift for people started this business, which Pat joined full-time after a brief stint working for the City Council. His brother Paul works with him in the business and the next generation of O’Connell’s are also involved..

Like so many stories, there have been bumps along the way, including the passing of his mum, work partner and great friend, Kathleen, which has left Pat and Paul to take the special business into the future.

Pat is a very proud Corkonian, a recent President of the Cork Business Association and anyone who has spent even five minutes chatting to him will understand why he believes Cork is the best place in the world to live and work.

In our chat I learnt a lot about his business philosophy and he also shared some exciting news about a new development with Dunnes Stores, which will be opening very soon in the Bishopstown store.

I hope you enjoy listening to Pat share his story as much as I did!

Click here and enjoy the show..

Fuzion Win Happy Podcast

Greg 

Greg Canty is a Partner of Fuzion Communications who offer Marketing, PR and Graphic Design services from our offices in Dublin and Cork, Ireland

Tags:, , , , ,
Posted in Bereavement, Cork, Customer Care, Strategy, Tourism | Leave a Comment »

The Ultimate Football Legend

June 18, 2017

Michael Canty - Oscar Traynor Cup winner 1966“Legend” is a huge word and when we talk about football legends we all have our favourites depending on what we look for in a player, the era when we grew up, the part of the world we come from and our favourite teams.

Could it be Pele, the sublime Brazilian magician with the huge smile who captured the worlds attention at the beginning of the football watching TV generation or is it  the more recent Messi or free scoring Ronaldo (ok, he’s brilliant but what a poser!)?

As a huge Liverpool FC fan I have to think about putting Kenny Daglish on my list as well as Robbie Fowler who in his prime must get a mention. How could I ignore Steven Gerrard who played a huge role in any success the team enjoyed in the more recent past and I also loved the no messing, elegant centre half Sami Hyppia.

When pushed for an absolute winner someone else, someone very special, but quite unknown rushes to the top of my list.

He’s a man who played to a very high level in Cork before emigrating to the United States in 1958, captaining teams that enjoyed national success. He played as a centre half in those teams and according to many people I have met down through the years he was highly respected.

Football, or soccer wasn’t popular in the U.S. but he did play a little over there with a team called the Newark Portugese and he continued to play in local leagues when he returned to Cork in 1964.

In 1966 he captained a representative team that was the first from Cork to win the prestigious Oscar Traynor Cup.

Like all proud fathers he played endless hours of football with his own son and then his grandchildren, passing on his passion, his encouragement and his skills to other generations. These different generations were brought to see Cork Hibs, Cork Celtic and later Cork City FC matches on a regular basis.

His love of football and fantastic, encouraging manner with young people had the neighbouring children knocking on his front door wondering was he coming out to play football with them on a regular basis!

I had the honour of walking with him recently in Ballincollig Park in Cork. Suddenly I found myself chatting to myself as he was no longer walking alongside me.

I looked back to see that he had stopped and was kicking a football back and forth to a young girl who was at the park with her mother. He was showing her how to kick the ball properly and had her repeating the action, over and over.

My number 1, football legend is Michael Canty (Mick to his teammates), my dad.

Thank you Pops, you are the very best

We will miss you desperately..

Greg Canty

Tags:, , ,
Posted in Cork, Family, Friendship, Parenting, Personal development, Sport, Training, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

A Tale of Two Cities and The Cork Opportunity

January 7, 2017

One Albert Quay, Cork

With busy offices in both Dublin and Cork I am in the privileged position of witnessing both cities up close and personal and with the nature of our work we get close to many of the key issues and challenges.

In Dublin I am a Council member of the Dublin Chamber of Commerce and in Cork I have been working on various marketing initiatives for the region so I guess I have a unique perspective. The recent Connecting Cork initiative by Cork Chamber has the city proactively connecting with our business diaspora around the globe.

Undoubtedly, there are terrific opportunities but there are also big challenges that must be addressed if we wish to seize them and Cork can play a pivotal role in ensuring that these opportunities stay in Ireland.

We hear the fantastic headlines on the news everyday about the many companies announcing new jobs but we also hear about how much demand there is for housing and the limited supply of high quality office space in the locations that contemporary businesses and their talented employees want to be in – high quality, accessible urban destinations with an attractive lifestyle mix.

While unemployment levels are half what they were at the peak of the recession the headlines are dominated with news of sky rocketing rents and the resulting social issues due to the huge imbalance of supply and demand for housing. The brave ‘Home Sweet Home’ campaign with the occupation of Apollo House has just put a huge spotlight on the issue of homelessness, which is in part a consequence of an improving economy.

So, it doesn’t always quite feel that we are succeeding.

While I am hugely proud of Cork, my hometown it is vital that Ireland has a strong, effective capital city to rival any in Europe. As part of my role in Dublin Chamber of Commerce we regularly feed into briefing documents and housing has been clearly identified as the number one issue for Dublin followed by infrastructure.

At the moment, it feels to me that Dublin is “broken” and it needs radical fixing so that the opportunities that present themselves can be seized without causing further problems for those living and working in the city.

The government for obvious reasons were unable to prime the development context to support the housing, office and hotel development that urban Ireland really needed. It also failed to really get to grips with the major infrastructure deficit in Dublin and we are now in major catch up mode.

To complicate matters further the management of the city of Dublin is totally fragmented, which makes cohesive planning and effective action extremely difficult.

The private land and property sector can shoulder some of the blame but there are huge tracts of brownfield land and property owned by State Agencies in Dublin, which should have been primed for development in 2012,13 and 14 for delivery now.

We talk about the genuine opportunities for Ireland as a result of Brexit but you must question if we could honestly cope with them if they came to fruition. If we are struggling with major issues for those living here now, are we crazy to be still talking about attracting even more businesses and talent?

Getting the companies here and then trying to sort out homes, schools and transport for the people afterwards will not be that easy.

ireland

While we proudly proclaim that “Ireland is the best small country in which to do business” we are in real danger of this message changing to “Ireland is the worst small country in which to find a suitable home“.

We need to be really careful because this message will catch on and once it does it will be very difficult for us to change the it.

This is where I believe Cork can step up to the mark.

In my hometown, something exciting is happening. Cork, has been progressing well with office, hotel, retail, leisure and community projects completed or under construction and at the same time public realm improvements are helping to present Cork in a better light.

However, Cork is also facing housing and infrastructure challenges but like any smaller ‘entity’ we should be more agile and flexible with the capability of reacting quickly as long as we have the genuine will to do so.

If Cork is positive and works diligently, cleverly and cohesively we can position the Cork ‘Metro’ area of some 500,000 people as Ireland’s only genuine second tier European city region full of innovative and creative people who are hungry to succeed.

Cork would then be in an ideal position to provide solutions for Ireland that Dublin will be unable to provide.

Cork can and should complement Dublin, adding more depth to Ireland’s global offer, helping IDA Ireland, Enterprise Ireland and the private sector to attract and retain businesses and people in Ireland and helping all to grow and succeed.

We now have real critical mass in global growth business sectors including technology, agribusiness, bio-pharma, tourism plus business services so a person can enjoy a great career along with other benefits.

Living in Cork is unquestionably a fantastic alternative with cheaper housing, cheaper office space, superb education, little congestion, the amazing countryside and coastline plus you can access Dublin, the rest of the island plus the global hubs of London, Paris and Amsterdam along with 50 other European cities easily. Into the bargain, we will soon be able to fly direct to the US.

Our most precious asset is the very special quality of life that is second to none in Cork, which many clever people, domestic and foreign, have already figured out. So many people who locate to Cork just don’t leave!

We have this superb opportunity and it is within our grasp once we are proactive and accelerate the development, infrastructure and marketing of the Cork region. House building must be front of centre with this agenda to ensure that we can provide all of our current and new citizens with suitable homes.

While Cork is “Big on Life” it needs to be just as Big on Action if we are to seize the opportunities that are there, right now.

Greg Canty 

Greg Canty is a Partner of Fuzion Communications who offer Marketing, PR and Graphic Design services from our offices in Dublin and Cork, Ireland

Tags:, , , , , , , ,
Posted in Business Planning, Cork, Destination Branding, Dublin, Homelessness | Leave a Comment »

Promoting Cork in London and Leadership

September 26, 2015

Cork - BgOnLife

We were delighted to have won the tender with Cork City Council to support them with the sponsorship of and participation in the FDI Forum in London, which was run by the Financial Times.

For me it was a great opportunity as we had been a key part of the work on the Cork Brand Marketing team, which involved literally all of the Cork stakeholders who wanted to market Cork with one consistent voice. This forum was the first expression of this work where we were able to use findings and language from the Cork brand book that we helped to develop.

#BigOnLife

With all marketing you need to do your very best to deliver a clear message that helps you to stand out in some way. From our work it was clear that Cork is very attractive for business as it works Economically, there is a strong, well educated Talent Pool, it has an abundance of great things to see and do (locals and tourist offering) and the Quality of Life is second to none in our fantastic region.

This is a ‘perfect mix for business and personal success‘ with a special emphasis on the person. You can achieve your career and business goals in Cork and at the same time enjoy a fantastic quality of life. This for us was the extra special, stand out ingredient that Cork has to offer and even though our region is relatively ‘small‘ we have quality of life in abundance.

If you were to use a tagline to highlight this most special characteristic about the Cork region then ‘Big On Life‘ might just be it!

Brochures and other marketing materials had to be prepared and printed so it was first time we could give our ‘Big On Life‘ message a test run.

FDI Forum - London

London

A strong contingent left for London including senior people from Cork City Council, Cork Chamber, Cork Airport, Developers, and significant businesses all with the intention of flying the flag for Cork and attracting foreign direct investment to our special place.

Cork Chamber organised a dinner in London to bring this team together and to invite some key members of the Cork business community in London (the IIBN network) as well as officials from the IDA.

Cork Chamber president Barrie O’Connell made sure that everyone introduced themselves to the group and then quite cleverly sparked off a conversation about Cork by asking a few people to speak on a topic. This generated a huge and very fascinating ‘Cork‘ conversation about a wide range of topics and issues and helped for all of us to hear different perspectives and to learn.

Michelle Conaghan of the IDA gave us an insight about how they work and their challenges and how competitive the market is. She spoke about the importance of sector clusters, which is important for a talent pool but she also mentioned that the ‘life‘ package is important.

We learnt from the Irish guys working in London about how expensive it is and how global businesses must look at other locations.

Donal Sullivan of Tyco spoke about evolution. Years ago they reduced their numbers in Cork for cost reasons but now the nature of their work is different so Cork is relevant again. He is on a huge recruitment drive and he says the talent pool in Cork and Munster is great but most interesting is the ease of getting people to relocate from Dublin.

The Cork operation is the best performing one globally from a staff retention point of view – I wonder why?!

Cork Chamber president Barrie O’Connell spoke about tax advantages nearly being gone and it is the other factors that must now come into play to attract investment to Cork.

Cork Chamber CEO Conor Healy spoke about the need for ‘ambassadors‘ who will spread the word about Cork and that we should focus on the positives with Cork Airport, the good news and the potential. He is right.

Niall Sheehan, Head of Property from Dairygold who have a huge office development about to start in Cork spoke about the compelling facts about Cork and that we should be more confident about the strength of our offer.

Roger Hobkinson (the adopted Corkman!) from Colliers International who led the Cork Brand Marketing project spoke glowingly about participating in activities such as the FDI forum as a vehicle to promote Cork and bring the brand book to life. He also spoke about the importance of urban locations as being key when promoting a region.

Jonathan Grey (who is very excited as he has bought a house in Cork) of the IIBN who is working and living in London spoke of competition for FDI from regions in Scotland, England and Wales. The new London flights to Cork will be an advantage. He coined a fantastic phrase “you can live in Cork and do business with the world” – I love it!

We heard from John Cleary of JCD about the key messages that he uses when he is attracting American IT companies to Ireland. Lower cost is a big advantage in Cork but quality of life means that staff retention rates can be a lot higher, which is another big selling point. From his conversations connectivity to the U.S. is a big deal so the recent announcements about Cork Airport are very welcomed. He also stated the obvious about Ireland – “people will look at Dublin first”. Cork is a very viable and compelling alternative.

Theo Cullinane of BAM (a Cork sports star with some unique achievements as we discovered!) also spoke enthusiastically about the super quick work they are doing at One Albert Quay for JCD. This will be an office development with the best specification in the country, which is what new companies are looking for.

Pat Ledwidge from Cork City Council who led the participation in the FDI Forum spoke about how Cork, now has “product to sell” so it must gear up its marketing efforts abroad.

Ann Doherty, Chief Executive of Cork City Council emphasised the cost advantages of Cork as well as the quality of life aspects.

Of course I had to get my few words in..

Dublin is a fantastic city with lots of advantages but it is heating up and it is starting to get quite costly. Cork presents a different and very compelling offer “The Cork offer makes the Ireland offer a lot stronger“.

The engaging conversation bounced from one side of the table to the other with each person talking enthusiastically about our ‘favourite place‘ until the restaurant staff politely gestured that it was getting late … it was past midnight!

Goodie Bags

Reader ..bear with me for a few minutes as I talk about goodie bags – this is leading somewhere!

We wanted to leave delegates at the FDI  forum with something different than the usual flyers and brochures. We decided that we would place a ‘Cork – Big On Life‘ box in each of the delegate packs instead of the normal so they would remember us!

We had handmade sweets from Cork, postcards and a few other little bits and pieces all to go in our ‘Cork Big On Life box‘. While this was a great idea it did however mean ‘Big on Hassle‘  as the boxes had to be assembled in London (no short cuts I’m afraid!) and filled.

Elmarie McCarthy from Cork City Council selflessly took responsibility for this monumental task along with everything else that she had to coordinate and her bedroom became a mini production line in the early hours of the morning (there was no access to the conference venue beforehand).

After the meal and the networking the Cork team that were staying in the same hotel took responsibility and pitched in and assembled and filled these boxes until 1:30 am. Well done to Ann Doherty, Pat Ledwidge, Conor Healy and Barrie O’Connell for jumping in, simply because a job had to be done.

The next morning there was a repeat performance – the Cork ‘Big On Life’ boxes weren’t going to magic their way into the delegate packs in the short window of time that was available before the event started  – there was no standing on ceremony and our leaders took responsibility once again, got to the venue early, jumped in once again and quickly did the job that was needed. I did help along with Roger from Colliers.

The FDI Forum

This was a fascinating day with a huge array of speakers and panelists as well as fantastic networking opportunity. Cork were there in force joined by Denis Collins of Smarter Dynamics, Kevin Cullinane of Cork Airport, Malcolm Allan from Place Matters (our destination branding guru who was fantastic to work with on the Cork Marketing project) and Doug Howlett from Munster Rugby all chatting to delegates and spreading the word.

Delegates

Cork was there proudly promoting ourselves along with other places such as Essex, Tblisi, Cyprus, Jersey, Melbourne, Lousiana, Singapore and Qatar.

I had an interesting chat with a delegation from Essex – they have a team of five people working for them proactively in the marketplace seeking opportunities as well as a Marketing/PR team supporting the communications of their message. They take a sector by sector approach and have identified four different ones to target. Promotion of your region is now sophisticated, big business and if we want these opportunities to come to Cork we need to gear up.

Ann Doherty - Chief Executive Cork City Council

Ann Doherty represented Cork superbly on a fascinating panel discussion and I am convinced that she must have worked in sales at some point because she didn’t let one opportunity to slip by to highlight what we have to offer here!

A lot of tired and weary Cork folk made there way to Heathrow airport to take the last flight home. 20 minutes after landing I was at home and I reflected on our little excursion (our airport is so incredibly fast and convenient).

As a proud Corkman I was privileged to have been part of this work and if this FDI community hadn’t heard of Cork before they certainly did now. Cork did itself proud in London and all of our various stakeholders need to do much more of this together. Individually we are all ambassadors for Cork and familiarising ourselves with our Cork brand book is a great starting point to stay on message with what our region has to offer.

The most impressive aspect of the London trip for me was the huge sense of pride and togetherness demonstrated by everyone, including our leaders and that willingness to take responsibility and do what was needed.

Cork .. #BigOnLife

Greg Canty 

Greg Canty is a Partner of Fuzion PR, Marketing and Graphic Design, with offices in Dublin and Cork

 

Tags:, , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Branding, Communications, Cork, Destination Branding, Ireland, Management, Marketing, Teamwork, Tourism | 3 Comments »

Cork Merger – A poor process has us all scrapping

September 19, 2015

Free-State

When we worked on the Cork Marketing Project I was so proud and excited that all of the stakeholders were working so well together and that we made great progress towards our collective goal of attracting people and investment to Cork.

So many people told me this level of co-operation just wouldn’t happen in Cork and I genuinely didn’t believe them – I had faith!

Now I am deeply saddened to read in The Irish Examiner this morning about all of the opposing views and in particular today the bitter war of words between the Cork Chamber and the Cork Business Association as well as local politicians.

The Cork Chamber are “all for the merger” quoting the benefits of greater capacity and a unified voice and the Cork Business Association are against it declaring that you cannot ignore the strong advice that came through in the minority report by the two UCC members who were on the committee charged with making the recommendations in the first place!

Guys …this is really lousy for Cork!

I have my own strong opinions about what should be done but at this stage I don’t really care about my opinions or anyone else’s because I feel the process which was adopted with such monumental consequences for so many of us Corkonians was not fit for the huge purpose that it was intended for.

I have gone out of my way this week to find out more by talking to many of the people involved and everyone has deep rooted opinions, lots of suspicions and theories, very opposing views and I am definitely not seeing anything in place that will sort out this awful situation in the near future.

Personally I can’t believe the insubstantial make up of the CLRG committee (it lacks sufficient expertise), the research undertaken can be challenged too easily (I don’t believe the committee had sufficient time or resources to do this properly), there seems to have been very little ‘real‘ consultation and I can see issues with the recommendations as I understand them (Read my blog post – Cork Merger Drama).

Most significantly the minority report prepared by Prof Keogh and Dr. Theresa Reidy (effectively 50% of the committee excluding the Chairman) totally undermines the whole process and cannot be ignored. I believe this was sufficient grounds for not publishing the recommendations until their concerns were properly dealt with.

Even worse my understanding is that there is no mechanism in place to take the recommendations from the report (maybe there is huge merit in many of them?) and evaluate them robustly by people with the appropriate expertise, assessing the benefits and potential downfalls of each. In particular this assessment must deal with all of the valid concerns and issues raised by the various stakeholders in Cork who for many years have been representing our many and varied interests.

Their opinions, experience and expertise are too valuable to ignore.

If the process was robust with all aspects and arguments considered and with all parties brought along then we might start to get some understanding and agreement and only then, move positively into the future.

The last aspect is dealing with those directly affected, namely the many employees in Cork City and County Councils who also deserve a very robust process, which they can understand and believe in.

I don’t think for one moment that this will be all plain sailing or that we will end up with agreement on all sides but as with any change programme it should at least be both transparent and robust and it must bring people along carefully.

Hand Grenade

To summarise what has happened is that a poorly thought out grenade has been thrown into Cork by the Minister and his team, the pin has been removed far too quickly and we are the ones who will suffer as a result.

This process has already done huge damage to Cork and it has the potential to do even more if corrective action is not taken quickly.

My request to all of us including our Cork Politicians and our representative organisations is:

“For the love of Cork can we please stop squabbling and instead focus on reversing this awful process with something robust that we can all believe in and one that will let us together move powerfully into the future”

We can’t afford to get left behind ..

Greg Canty 

Greg Canty is a Partner of Fuzion PR, Marketing and Graphic Design, with offices in Cork and Dublin

 

Tags:, , , ,
Posted in Change Management, Cork, Crisis PR, Destination Branding, Ireland, Irish Politics, Tourism | Leave a Comment »

Cork City and County – Merger drama!

September 10, 2015

Cork bridge

The report has been issued and in true ‘Cork‘ fashion it is a car crash of confusion and of course we couldn’t even get consensus among those on the small, tight evaluation panel!

A good friend of mine in Dublin who is in a position of authority in a powerful organisation tells me that “it’s pointless trying to get anything done in Cork because of the politics“.

This is sickening to listen to but is he right?

I eagerly awaited the reports in the local newspapers to try to get a grip on the issues and some sense of what is being recommended.

Maybe I am very simplistic on all of this but before delving into what they are saying we need to assess what we have currently in Cork:

  • A vast geographic area with a very definite large urban centre surrounded by a collection of rural towns and countryside
  • Urban issues and quite different rural issues to manage
  • A management structure where the city council is managing only part of the ‘effective‘ city and a county council which is managing a chunk of the ‘effective‘ city and a vast rural area with country towns
  • Two complete management structures with separate Chief Executives, Mayors and Councillors
  • One fantastic place that needs cohesive marketing with meagre resources (the best attribute of our city is the county and the best attribute of the county is our city)

So we have a real difference in types of issues, a real potential for duplication of overheads through two structures, politics at play and a hunger for power, history and how it has always been and a real need to pull together to achieve anything meaningful.

Alf Smiddy Alan Kelly, Cork City and Country Merger

I was hoping the recommendations would resolve this and before arriving at my own conclusions I wanted to soak up the feedback as it has been reported:

City Mayor Chris O’Leary reckons it relegates the status of the city – it will become one of ‘three divisions’ but with a larger better defined, more sensible catchment area

Micheal Martin, Fianna Fail leader  reckons the city will be marginalised and out voted – the overall Chief Executive will be in the County and the Deputy will be in the city, running one of three divisions

Cork Chamber of Commerce see it as being a “winning formula” but the Cork Business Association says it realises their “worst fears” …ah come on guys!! (Cork Chamber have a wider geographic spread than the Business association, which is mainly city centre, which probably explains the difference)

Ciaran Lynch, Labour TD feels it would “relegate the city to the status of a town council”

Significantly the two members of the CLRG  committee who vehemently oppose the merger (Prof Keogh and Dr. Theresa Reidy feel so strongly that they have produced their own minority report outlining their concerns)  state that “the two county divisions will be able to out vote the city” ..that’s not good I’m thinking!

Neither City or County Chief Executives are allowing themselves to be drawn on the matter but it is speculated that the more experienced County Chief Executive, Tim Lucey would get the senior role and Ann Doherty the City Chief Executive would become Deputy, with responsibility for the city.

The City Mayor, Chris O’Leary stated that the merger recommendations are “an insult to the people of Cork” – I’m not sure if too many would come up with that one in all fairness Chris!

When power and position are at stake it’s hard to believe anything that these guys will say – its logical that if they are losing something it is a travesty and if they are gaining then it will be the best thing since the sliced pan!

Even the ‘anti austerity‘ crew vowed to block the merger – basically they feel that urban working class communities will lose some of their clout

CIT welcomes the proposal and Cork County Council issued a statement saying “it would create jobs“. This is a funny one as if anything it should eliminate duplication.

The very wise, commercial and practical Alf Smiddy the Chairman of the process said things I would expect such as “more can be achieved with combined resources instead of divided responsibility” – ok, now someone is talking sense.

Cork County Hall Statue

It was now time for me to review the proposal to see where all this reaction was coming from.

  • One clear structure that achieves resource efficiency, eliminates duplication and creates a real synergy of purpose and intent would be fantastic for Cork – I’m not seeing this in what is recommended. I see divisions and power hubs.
  • One merged entity makes sense as long as we have a robust structure to manage this large area and one that takes into account the very different issues between our core urban centre and our rural areas – The proposal of three divisions, one city and two rural is sensible if these are management units and not power bases. This is not clear and I don’t like the word ‘divisions’.
  • The power structure (as opposed to management structure) between the divisions will cause big problems as they seem to be power bases with “votes” – the opposing members of the committee should really be listened to here
  • In my opinion the city must always be at the ‘core’ of the region and must not be relegated in any way to having a secondary voice. The urban area must be the economic driver and must never run the risk of being minimised in any way. This is not clear in the plan at all, which is a big worry.
  • Our region must be marketed as a cohesive region both to tourists and economically. Three divisions will not be a viable proposition and there must be a provision for one cohesive marketing team. I didn’t see this in the plan.
  • Politics and power games are clearly at play which will confuse all of the feedback
  • There is a lot of fuss being made of the Lord Mayor’s position in all of this – am I the only one who views them as just ‘nice’ figureheads?
  • It is clear that there are huge divisions and differences in opinion and we need to tease all of these out fully before we have any chance of moving forward

Based on what I have read and heard it is clear to me that there are major issues with the recommendations that cannot be ignored.

We need to put politics and power games aside, patiently work through all of these issues, address the real concerns and for once pull together as ‘Cork’ so that we can manage our fantastic place effectively and embrace all of the many opportunities that are available to us.

I want to prove my friend in Dublin wrong!

Greg Canty 

Greg Canty is a Partner of Fuzion PR, Marketing and Graphic Design 

 

 

 

Tags:, , , , , , ,
Posted in Cork, Destination Branding, Management, Teamwork, Tourism | 1 Comment »

« Older Entries