Call made for a review of an urban area plan for a Tipperary town to be carried out

Over the past three years the Clonmel based Crannach environmental group have consistently requested a rethink on some details of the urban design plan for the town centre.

Crannach has been pressing Clonmel Borough Council to review a decision to remove all the town centre mature trees and to adopt adequate flood control measures to mitigate against severe weather events.
Crannach fully support the regeneration of the town centre but are adamant that aspects of the council urban design plan, which is now more than five years old, are out of date in the light of the latest weather predictions by Met Eireann and the

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
The group point to the most recent heat waves and flooding events in parts of Europe as a foretaste of similar events in Ireland.

STREET HEAT
Crannach points to a growing body of international research citing the benefits of mature wide canopied trees in providing vital shade with a reduction in temperature under trees of up to 20 degrees celsius.
Town planners refer to the ‘urban heat island effect’ which can make city streets unbearable during the very hot spells we are now encountering.

Current thinking in street planning includes the use of medium to large trees with generous leaf cover including London Plane trees which are the predominant variety in O’Connell and Gladstone streets.
Crannach has previously been told by the council that these are ‘the wrong trees in the wrong place’.

The council’s planned replacement trees are of a small stature with limited shade provision
Members of the group have previously mounted a Red Ribbon campaign as well as an online petition to try to persuade the council to engage a tree expert to evaluate the benefits of the forty mature trees which are due to be destroyed.
The petition attracted over two thousand signatures, but council officials have consistently refused to revisit the decision to fell all the trees or engage an expert.

Crannach accepts that some of the trees are unhealthy and dying but cannot understand why the healthy specimens are also due to be felled in the new town plan.
Crannach are also concerned that the recent pruning of the trees has been very severe and detrimental to the shape, health and visual appearance of the trees.
They are requesting a review of pruning techniques used by the council in the coming autumn.
FLOODING
Sudden severe flooding events which are increasingly likely can be greatly reduced in severity by the adoption of simple rainwater diversion methods.

RAIN GARDENS
The failure to include ‘rain gardens’ and other sustainable drainage systems (SuDS) in the new town centre design plan is also a cause for concern, says Crannach.
They believe that the plan needs to be revised with the adoption of these measures which are included in the Tipperary County Development Plan for all new projects.
Crannach points to a number of recent Clonmel developments which, they say, have unfortunately failed to incorporate SuDS technology.
These include the council’s Suir Island car park, the new Town Plaza car park and most recently, a new shopping centre.

MATURE TREES
They say that it would be very regrettable if another development went ahead without SuDS being included, especially in the light of new severe weather event predictions.
They also point out that the condemned mature town trees are providing significant soakage of rainwater, another reason for their retention in a revised plan, they say.
Crannach is now seeking a further meeting with Tipperary County Council on these matters.