DUBLIN CITY COUNCIL has confirmed that College Green in the city centre will be traffic-free on Sunday 21 July, Sunday 28 July and Sunday 4 August. 

The council announced the measure earlier this year and has confirmed that the area in front of Bank of Ireland will be pedestrianised on these three Sundays.

“College Green will become, in effect, pedestrianised on these days and a programme of family orientated events will be held,” a council spokesperson said.

A permanent pedestrianised plaza for College Green was proposed by the council in 2016 and sought to ban all traffic from the area, before being rejected by An Bord Pleanála (ABP) last year over traffic concerns. 

The council hasn’t abandoned the plan for a permanent plaza and aims to lodge a fresh application with ABP this year. In the meantime, the council is trialing a traffic-free College Green on these three Sundays to gauge public reaction. 

Brendan O’Brien of the council’s Traffic Department told a meeting of the Transport Committee in January that these traffic-free Sundays would allow people to see “what College Green can do”.

In a study carried out by Amarách Research last November for RTÉ’s Claire Byrne Live and TheJournal.ie, the majority of the 1,000 people surveyed said that the area in front of the Bank of Ireland should be traffic-free. 

Of those surveyed, just 22% said that College Green should not be pedestrianised.

Last week, councillors agreed to prepare and implement a “Pedestrian Strategy” over the next five years which will pursue the plaza project and which also aims to have Drury Street, South William Street, Moore Street and Dame Lane pedestrianised by 2024. 

The council spokesperson said that an event management company “has been engaged to assist with the development of an appropriate programme of events” for each Sunday and that traffic management arrangements are now “being finalised and discussions taking place with relevant stakeholders”.