CORK CITY COULD grow by 79,000 with an examinations of the county’s city and county borders set to take place.

This comes after an announcement by Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Alan Kelly that a statutory committee has been appointed to review the county’s city boundary and other local government arrangements.

The move aims to expand Cork city’s metropolitan area. The reason given for this was that a large amount of what would be considered Cork city is currently within Cork County Council’s jurisdiction.

It is estimated that this could see 79,000 residents rezoned into the Cork City Council jurisdiction.

The examination by an independent group will also look into the possibility of merging local authority structures.

Benefits to Cork 

In a statement today, Minister Kelly said that reexamining borders would allow for more coherent development in the county.

“It’s important that both the city and county are not held back in terms of economic progress and resolving the boundary issue permanently is part of that. This is about selecting the most appropriate system of local government for Cork city and county and ensuring proper democratic representation,” said Kelly.

This came after discussions with mayors and chief executives from Cork city and county.

It has been stated that changes to boundaries could tackling issues relating to commercial rates, planning and unnecessary duplication of administration.

The move is part of a wider reform programme of local government – with action also being taken in Tipperary, Limerick and Waterford.

Committee 

The body set up to reexamine the borders shall be in place for the next 9 months and will contain no elected representatives. The committee will be made up of five members.

Members of the body shall be working on a pro-bono basis.

On the proposed action of the committee, Minister Kelly went on to say:

I have full confidence that this committee will propose the structure that it believes will serve the best interests o the people of Cork city and county.

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