Council planning redesign for Dublin’s Moore Street

Dublin's Moore Street is to be redesigned by Dublin City Council in an attempt to "bring order" to the city's oldest outdoor food market.

The council has become increasingly concerned about the condition of the street market and its workers’ ability to clean the street because of the way the stalls are being used.

“There is difficulty in manoeuvring the street cleaning equipment because of the order in which the stands are kept. They are sprawling out all over the place, so our intention is to bring order to the street,” said an official.

The council is also concerned the street is being accessed by vehicles at all times of the day, despite being pedestrianised from the junction of O’Rahilly Parade to Henry Street after 11am each day. “It is clearly evident this is not being adhered to,” she said.

The council owns two buildings on the street, which it uses as a waste depot, but the remaining properties are in private hands. However, it is responsible for licensing the market traders on the street.

Waste management

Stall holders pay the council annual rates of €287 and a casual trading licence fee of €225, but are not charged for waste management services, the council said, which run to €147,250 a year.

A significant number of buildings on the street, including the Ilac Centre and the 1916 National Monument building, are owned by developer Joe O'Reilly's Chartered Land. The company has permission to build a shopping centre on a 2.7 hectare site stretching from the former Carlton cinema on O'Connell Street to Moore Street, and planned a revamp of the street in that development.

While planning permission was granted for the shopping complex, known as Dublin Central, in 2010, no work has started and a spokeswoman for Chartered Land said the scheme was “on hold pending a recovery in the Irish economy”.

Moveable bollards

The council has decided to go ahead with its own improvement scheme for Moore Street. As an initial step, bollards will be installed in coming months which can be removed for morning deliveries. It also proposes to install new lighting in the form of street lanterns.

It will then move on to redesigning the stalls and their layout. There are 26 on the street but “no cohesion or uniformity” in their location or use, said the council. “The majority of traders are not using their stalls; produce is stacked on the public footpath. The current stalls are not user-friendly and inhibit trading.”

The council proposes to introduce new stalls which would be located in the roadway, not on the path, back-to-back in groups of four. Traders who were not using the new stalls would have them confiscated and relet. A market manager would be appointed to bring “control and order to the street”, said the official. “We want to redesign the street to make it a more effective market street.”

The existing traders will be consulted on the proposals for the market and the redesign of the stalls, she said.