Hi All, it's taken me a while to come back and update this as the response from council has been a disheartening one. A meeting was held on the 3rd of February regarding the proposal for an off-leash area in Tory Top park and once again council came back with the same answer. There are proposed pilot projects for Tramore Valley park and Ballincollig regional park. This is despite having already admitted there is no funding for these in the coming year and despite multiple explanations as to why dog owners would prefer pilot projects be run in more local and easily accessible parks. Most of the councilors I have spoken to have made it seem like these proposals only came about at the end of last year but I can now confirm from looking at council meeting minutes that the first proposal for a dog park in Tramore Valley dates back to the 10th of February 2014.
7 YEARS!! In that time off-leash areas in some form or other have been proposed in 9 separate meetings that I could find in the minutes. Bars and cafes in our city have been making efforts to be more dog-friendly but parks (where you would most expect to see a dog) have made no progress in 7 years. So to the councilors that may have signed this petition I ask how many more years do you expect us to wait? Maybe it's time to consider other forms of off-leash areas besides the ones for Tramore Valley and Ballincollig Regional.
To each and every one of you who signed this petition I ask you to share it again. Start a movement on your social medias. Take a picture with your dog and share it to social media and use the hashtags #CorkCityNeedsADogPark #CorkCityCouncil #MakeCorkCityDogFriendly. If enough of us do this maybe the council will finally hear our voices and we won't have to wait another 7 years.