Litir Chumhdaigh
The Bride river is an important green environmental asset on the northside of Cork City, it is the home to otters and dippers and other rare river/ urban wildlife, It is a green enclave with beautiful mature trees. The plan to culvert this stretch of river will destroy habitat and greatly impinge on natural green environment for people in this part of the city. It is also extremely costly and not like to provide any lasting solution to flood damage. Concrete is not a solution for rivers. Poor planning and concrete covering of river flood plains is the root cause of flooding. There are alternative plans to slow the river further upstream that will be a fraction of the cost.
Culverting the river and placing a park on top will in all intents and purposes remove the Bride River Valley from the Northside and replace it with a concrete garden. mature trees will be cut down and the river will disappear underground. This will result in loss of habitat for current fauna - important nursing grounds for otter families and dipper, heron and other local wildlife. It will completely remove an important wild element from the city. and its human inhabitants. Culverting is expensive and hasn't proved to be the mist successful way to deal with flooding. A river need its flood plains, not more surfacing, slowing the river upstream will achieve better prevention from urban flooding, more simply and with much less waste of public funding.
Don't culvert the Bride.
Loss of habitat, loss of wild nature, lack of green thinking