UCC students collaborate on town health check reports

22 Jun 2023

A collaboration between UCC students, the Heritage Council and Cork City Council was recently celebrated at the launch of two Collaborative Town Centre Health Check (CTCHC) summary reports.

Minister of State for Heritage and Electoral Reform, Malcolm Noonan TD  launched the reports assessing the strengths and opportunities of Blarney, and Tower and Cloghroe’s historic town centres.

The reports will help inform future decisions, policy creation and funding applications in these areas. Members of these communities attended the launch, along with the UCC graduates and project partners.

During 2021, 24 students from UCC’s Masters in Planning and Sustainable Development (MPlan) collaborated with the Heritage Council, Cork City Council and local businesses and community groups in Blarney, Tower and Cloghroe to collect the data and record the local opinions that formed the basis of the CTCHC reports. The students worked with Jeanette Fitzsimons, lecturer at UCC’s Centre for Planning Education & Research, on the reports and UCC Consulting supported the project.

Real-life projects such as the Collaborative Town Centre Health Check reports have long-lasting, impactful outcomes, and substantially increase the quality of student learning. They embody UCC’s Connected Curriculum through co-creating knowledge with students, underpinned by the SDGs and creating connections with societal partners.

Jeanette Fitzsimons said: “The new partnerships forged through this CTCHC data-creation process have been hugely rewarding, helping generate a collective place-making movement within all the partners, which is fundamental to empowering climate action by local communities. I believe that such partnerships can lead to true, long-lasting change for historic towns, which are linked to the UN SDGs.” 

“Establishing robust baseline information and data is important to historic towns in the Cork City area, and it is essential that the Programme for Government invests in the recovery and renaissance of historic places in Ireland. There are mutual benefits for all involved – the community and local Council gain the reports and the students develop their skills, which they are now applying in their careers as graduate planners in both the public and private sectors in Ireland and abroad.”

The Heritage Council’s CTCHC programme measures citizens’ perceptions of historic towns’ commercial, heritage and cultural assets, as well as measuring public satisfaction with accessibility and cultural facilities.

Ali Harvey, the Heritage Council’s CTCHC Programme Founding Co-ordinator, outlined: “The CTCHC Reports for Blarney and Tower & Cloghroe clearly demonstrate the importance of having robust baseline and primary spatial data to inform communities and decision-making and investment proposals for the future planning of our historic town centres. This community-led approach to heritage and environmental management is hugely important as town and city centres throughout Ireland are facing a challenging time, as they face into an uncertain future that requires them to meet strict climate change and EU Green Deal targets by 2030 and 2050.”