New Forum Brings Focus On City Centre
10th November 2014
Cork Chamber today officially launched a new Cork City Centre Forum. The Forum which is made up of retailers and business owners from across the City as well as City Council, represented by new City CEO Ann Doherty, An Garda Síochána and representative business organisations.
Speaking ahead of the launch Gillian Keating, Forum Chair said, “This is a very exciting new development for the City Centre of Cork. The objective of the Forum is to identify and advance new and innovative opportunities to drive footfall and business in the City Centre. Cork has received international recognition by the likes of the Huffington Post and Lonely Planet for its culture, food, entertainment and warm reception and we need to build on that. This Forum is about those who are active in the City working together to bring the best of what we have to offer to our local and international visitors.”
The Chief Executive of Cork City Council, Ann Doherty stated, “We are delighted to be here this morning for the official launch of the Chamber’s new initiative – the Cork City Centre Forum. Cork City Council looks forward to working with Cork Chamber and the other stakeholders in the City Centre in the implementation of the five year Action Plan that it is developing on foot of the submission received from the public in response to the proposals in the City Centre Strategy.”
Barry McPolin, Superintendent of An Garda Síochána said, “This is a very positive move from the business community in the City and we are delighted to be part of a collaborative effort to make peoples experience of the City better. In particular we will work with the Forum to help deliver the Purple Flag accreditation to show that Cork is both a safe and an entertaining place to socialise and visit in the evening times.”
Forum member and long time City Centre trader Pat O’Connell added, “One of my main reasons for working with the Forum is to bring positive solutions to problems we face every day in the City to help make it a better place to visit and shop. One key issue that we have been working on is around the whole parking situation and trying to improve the communications to make people more aware of the deals on offer from the Q-Park sites and the City Council Christmas parking offers also. If the Forum can create stronger working relationships with Cork City Council leading to more positive results for traders I am all for it.”
Cork Chamber is the leading business organisation in Cork supporting and representing the interests of approximately 1,100 businesses employing 100,000 people in the region. Cork Chamber has a mandate to develop and promote policy recommendations that create an enabling business environment and support the region’s economic development.
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