Bridge St now in design plan

BRIDGE Street is now included in the design brief for the regeneration of Clanbrassil Street and the St Nicholas Quarter, councillors were assured at Municipal District meeting on Tuesday night.

Funding for this section, however, remains an issue as the local authority prepares to put the plans on public consultation from the end of January.

Consultants BDP Ireland met with several stakeholders before finalising the design plans including the Gardai, Chamber of Commerce, Dundalk BIDS, retailers, schools, Tidy Towns’ committee, Church of Ireland, ESB, Dundalk Cycling Allicance, Louth Older People’s Forum and the Disability Alliance, as well as artists.

Mr Gareth Maguire, architect director with BDP Ireland, outlined how they had taken on board the issues raised by these groups in over 25 hours of listening to submissions before Christmas and had now produced a proposal for the northern quarter which is an extension of the design philosophy of the rest of the scheme.

He said that the response to the proposals were ‘overall very positive’ and the feedback from these stakeholders was now being incorporated into the scheme being prepared for the Part 8 planning process.

This included plans to thin out trees at the southern end of Clanbrassil Street after Gardai pointed out that they caused ‘ blind spots’ for CCTV coverage and obstructed the facade of a number of buildings.

He assured councillors that the quality of the materials would mitigate against the pavement and roads from sinking and that few bollards would be incorporated in the design.

They were impressed at how the historic nature of the St Nicholas Quarter was valued by those who made submissions and they were now looking at ideas as to how art could be included in the plans for the St Nicholas Quarter.

Concerns about the pedestrian crossing at Yorke Street would also be taken on board.

There would be guidelines as to how shop fronts should be presented to enhance the historic nature of the streets.

Cllr Peter Savage welcomed the news that Bridge Street and Linenhall Street were being included in the design brief. He urged the officials to identify where they could access funding in order to complete the work right down to the Castletown River.

He warned that if this isn’t done it would further undermine that area of town and would be ‘a job half done’.