Developing Limerick City as a counter balance to Dublin

zulutango

Can we keep it on topic? This is not about making Cork the counter-balance to Dublin.

TonyCliftonEsq

snotboogie wrote: »

There is less than a 25 minute road transit difference to Dublin between Limerick and Cork. Cork also has direct rail links to Dublin. Cork Airport is busier than Shannon Airport. Cork clearly has better industrial and technological facilities than Limerick. There is plenty of available land around both cities, I wouldn't think there is a huge difference in land price?? Willing to be proved wrong on that one.

Really?

EDIT: Actually you are correct, though Cork never reached the heights of Shannon at its busiest. Cork also doesn't seem to do cargo and the runway can't handle fully laden widebody planes.

Avatar MIA

zulutango wrote: »

Can we keep it on topic? This is not about making Cork the counter-balance to Dublin.

It's hard to look at Limerick in isolation.

snotboogie

Villa05 wrote: »

This is not about county borders, you will note that there are many large towns in Clare, Tipperary within a 30 minute commute of Limerick. There are also quiet a few commuting from North Cork/Kerry to work in Limerick

Like where? Shannon is the only town over 1,000 people which is outside of County Limerick and realistically in the commuter belt. Maybe Ennis and Nenagh but both are over 40km from Limerick City.

jonski

I thought the idea of suggesting Limerick was because it wasn't overly developed already and would be easier to "experiment with"

try out new ideas “quickly and at scale in a test environment first to explore and develop solutions which work in an Irish context and once we have the working solutions we can implement them in Dublin”.

Would Cork not already be too far along for this concept ?

Clareman

snotboogie wrote: »

Like where? Shannon is the only town over 1,000 people which is outside of County Limerick and realistically in the commuter belt. Maybe Ennis and Nenagh but both are over 40km from Limerick City.

I commute from Ennis to Limerick for work and I know a lot of other people that do, yes it might be 40km away but that's all motorway which is 20 minutes drive.

12Phase

Cityslicker1 wrote: »

Corbally in county Clare is a fairly big suburb of Limerick and it's not counted in the overall figure of the city. When included it brings the total population over 100,000. The city stretches about 7/8km in the East to the suburb of Annacotty and a similar distance towards Raheen/Dooradoyle at the other side of the city. Maybe Cork is physically more compact - Cork city only stretches out about 3km on the Limerick side.

Cork is pretty compact and comparably well planned compared to most Irish cities and towns. It has an actual green belt and satellite towns without sprawling across it.

Also most of Cork's spread is actually south and west. The Limerick road cuts through the Northside which is comparatively much less developed than the south and west side in terms of suburban housing.

A proper connection between Cork, Limerick and Waterford might actually be a bit of a catalyst for development across the whole region though. There's a lot of synergies between those cities that could counterbalance Dublin very effectively.

Townie_P

If John Moran's plan for Limerick was to be adopted, Limerick's population would eventually dwarf Cork's population over time. I'd love to still be alive to see the death of that superiority complex

Pablo Escobar

Townie_P wrote: »

If John Moran's plan for Limerick was to be adopted, Limerick's population would eventually dwarf Cork's population over time. I'd love to still be alive to see the death of that superiority complex

While all this talk is realistically political bull**** the real developments are actually happening in Cork. Monard just got planning this week and the docklands projects are finally beginning to happen. There's a massive strategic plan for the south and north docks, but particularly the south.

Straight Talker

12Phase wrote: »

Cork is pretty compact and comparably well planned compared to most Irish cities and towns. It has an actual green belt and satellite towns without sprawling across it.

Also most of Cork's spread is actually south and west. The Limerick road cuts through the Northside which is comparatively much less developed than the south and west side in terms of suburban housing.

A proper connection between Cork, Limerick and Waterford might actually be a bit of a catalyst for development across the whole region though. There's a lot of synergies between those cities that could counterbalance Dublin very effectively.

I think you'll find that people here are not intrested in link ups.As it is Cork is in a strong enough place in terms of population and economy etc to be the counter balance to Dublin all on it's own.Cork already is much further ahead of Limerick in terms of being a strong counter balance to Dublin and that hold will strengthen if Cork airport get's the go ahead for flights to and from the USA.

snotboogie

Townie_P wrote: »

If John Moran's plan for Limerick was to be adopted, Limerick's population would eventually dwarf Cork's population over time. I'd love to still be alive to see the death of that superiority complex

Most Cork people have no problem with Limerick and the superiority complex is clearly tongue in cheek. I think Moran's plan deserves rigorous debate. If you want to develop Limerick ahead of Cork, we want to hear a damn good argument as to why. As far as I am concerned the location advantages in Limerick don't cut it against the economic and demographic arguments for Cork. In an ideal world we'd see development across Galway, Limerick and Cork.

Villa05

snotboogie wrote:

In an ideal world we'd see development across Galway, Limerick and Cork.

I think that is the ultimate plan, using Limerick as a guinea pig to find best practice.

Another factor not mentioned is that Limerick has very affordable accommodation. This could be something that is embedded going forward and put controls in place to prevent house prices and rent rising above general inflation.

The benefits of this have been ignored in the development of Cork, Dublin and Galway.

In doing this industry that would not normally be attracted to Ireland could now thrive in in a region of the country that values cost reduction.

snotboogie

Straight Talker wrote: »

I think you'll find that people here are not intrested in link ups.As it is Cork is in a strong enough place in terms of population and economy etc to be the counter balance to Dublin all on it's own.Cork already is much further ahead of Limerick in terms of being a strong counter balance to Dublin and that hold will strengthen if Cork airport get's the go ahead for flights to and from the USA.

I'd be very cautious about projecting anything from those Norweigan flights. It's clear they are using Cork airport for their own ends and if they get approval the numbers out of Cork would want to be blowing Shannon out of the water for them not to up sticks and move to the comfort of pre clearance and established routes. Cork airport needs a strong partner to stick with transatlantic until it gets developed and I find it very hard to see Norweigan filling that role.

Balmed Out

I would think one of the biggest factors is not the potential or size of the airports but of the ports, I'd guess cork would be better suited from that point of view given the location of major sea lanes. I would wonder about the potential for Cork (or Waterford) with mainland Europe and the UK and for Limerick with perhaps Scotland and Scandinavia to be used as transshipment hub's. Its one area that perhaps we may potentially be of international importance. I know little of this sort of thing so could be way off.

Cork has a strange relationship with the rest of Ireland, it always seems to have more people from a dozen European countries then any Irish county bar Kerry with a lot of Ireland knowing little of it.

Personally I would be against the promotion of just one city to provide a counterbalance to Dublin. It would require too much growth to be done in a reasonable time.

Villa05

Topic to be debated on Newstalk today at 11 am

snotboogie

Villa05 wrote: »

Topic to be debated on Newstalk today at 11 am

Listening to it on playback now, awful piece so far. The guy in favour of an alternative city is claiming that the population of Limerick and Cork are declining and is using CSO figures for the city, which don't count the suburbs which are increasing in population. The guy against developing a core takes this to mean that people want to live in the countryside and are being forced to commute to a city. As I thought both are will fully ignorant of the reality of where people live around cities. Places like Carrigaline and Ballincollig are not country towns, they are suburbs.

The guy in favour pushed Cork as the alternative but seemed unaware of the dockland development and the economy in Cork. The guy against made the same redundant point about people living in the country and working on their laptop over and over. He ended by calling for more government decentralization to rural areas and labelled the last process a great success. A thoroughly discouraging piece overall.

12Phase

Stating that Cork or Limerick are declining is absolute nonsense. Look out the window and you can tell that's absolutely not the case.

Cork City Centre is just ceding more and more space to non residential use and has a lot of old empty nester homes in expensive inner suburban areas.

zulutango

snotboogie wrote:

Listening to it on playback now, awful piece so far. The guy in favour of an alternative city is claiming that the population of Limerick and Cork are declining and is using CSO figures for the city, which don't count the suburbs which are increasing in population. The guy against developing a core takes this to mean that people want to live in the countryside and are being forced to commute to a city. As I thought both are will fully ignorant of the reality of where people live around cities. Places like Carrigaline and Ballincollig are not country towns, they are suburbs.

The guy in favour pushed Cork as the alternative but seemed unaware of the dockland development and the economy in Cork. The guy against made the same redundant point about people living in the country and working on their laptop over and over. He ended by calling for more government decentralization to rural areas and labelled the last process a great success. A thoroughly discouraging piece overall.

That's depressing. Who were the guests?

It's not surprising that Newstalk would **** up the debate though. They're really only interested in listener numbers and getting people agitated.