Plans to bring trams to the Irish city of Cork have moved a step further with the results of the initial public consultation having been released. These results show that there is support for Cork Luas with many of those who objected to the plans wanting a larger network and for the project to be delivered quicker than the current plans.
Luas Cork is planned to be a 18km light rail line which would run between Ballincollig and Mahon via the city centre. The initially proposed route would connect key destinations including MTU, Cork University Hospital, UCC, Cork City Centre, Kent Station, the Docklands, Pairc Ui Chaoimh, and Mahon. Journey times would be 35 minutes Ballincollig-city centre and then a further 20 minutes out to Mahon.
The consultation – which ran for eight weeks and ended in early June 2025 – saw 972 unique responses and of these 55% were either very satisfied, satisfied or neutral about the proposed route. The remainder were either unsatisfied or very unsatisfied. They were also asked about the location of stops and the results for that question were 43% satisfied, 18% neutral and 39% dissatisfied.
Of note is that one of the common themes of the responses was the need for a larger Luas network in Cork. This has included a petition organised by Sinn Fein called “Cork deserves a proper Luas!” which asks for a more ambitious north-south line that would include all key growth areas as well as a spur to Cork Airport.
In the actual survey there were requests to extend the route to communities in Douglas, Carrigaline, and Rochestown (223 responses), Cork Airport (181 responses), Classis Lake and Ovens (169 responses), Glanmire, Blackpool and Mayfield (118 responses).
As would be expected there were also concerns expressed from some in the consultation. This included residents in Churchyard Lane, Ballintemple and Melbourn Road who are worried about impacts on them during both construction and operation, the loop around Ballincollig and the potential constraints of Station Road to accommodate the line were of most concern.
Now these results have been released the project team and key stakeholders will progress to the development of a Preferred Route, which will be released in due course.
- The full Emerging Preferred Route consultation report can be downloaded at https://www.luascork.ie/media/tozgzem0/luas-cork_post-consultation-report_accessible.pdf