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Cork’s docklands – learning from regeneration in a port city
On 31 May 2019, Cork City expanded its administrative boundary, resulting in the city becoming nearly five times its former size and increasing its population by 85 000, to 210000 CorkCity is now defined as a medium-sized European port city and it includes a number of urban regeneration projects of significance within this context.
A new city development plan that needs to plan for ambitious national growth targets for 2040 is currently being prepared. This plan will provide a revised framework for shaping the future structure of a growing city. It must be driven by a very clear set of development principles, including enhancing and fostering a city with strong communities, liveable neighbourhoods and an excellent quality of life. The consolidation and regeneration of the city centre will be critical, to underpin its role as the vibrant, living and working heart of the city. Central to this will be the regeneration of the city docklands as a high-quality, mixed-use, sustainable waterfront area with new urban quarters and transformational projects based on international best practice.
Enabled by the ESPON programme to support territorial development policy-making through evidence, Cork City Council initiated and drove the ESPON ENSURE (European Regeneration through Port City Regeneration) project, recruiting comparable partner port cities, namely Aalborg, Brest and Catania, as well as academic and consultancy partners. With Cork City Council being the lead stakeholder in this project, the research, analysis and lessons learnt provide us with timely and valuable insights into the potential impacts of port city regeneration in Cork and a better understanding of the most appropriate methods and tools available.
The lessons learnt will feed directly into the next city development plan and the local area plans for the City docklands and Tivoli docklands. Multiple pan-European studies of urban renewal and regeneration in small and medium-sized cities also provide open and accessible comparisons for Cork’s dockland regeneration projects. While the in-depth case studies of each of the four ENSURE stakeholder cities and the Good Practice Framework Handbook provide more detailed learnings on city regeneration. The project has also resulted in a number of valuable spin-offs.