Dolphin House and Park Residents and Dublin City Council state clearly Regeneration of Dolphin House and Park will Continue
5 Nov 2009
Recent media reports of the regeneration of Dolphin House and Park, Dublin 8, being abandoned were incorrect. The residents of Dolphin House and Dublin City Council are currently working on developing a Masterplan for the regeneration of Dolphin House. Regeneration of Dolphin House is urgently required
Dr. Rory Hearne, Regeneration Worker for Dolphin House stated: "There is a strong community in Dolphin House. It has shown amazing courage, spirit and innovation and will continue to work, as it has done, to improve things. Residents have worked with architects to develop an exciting vision for a newly regenerated Dolphin House and Park involving complete demolition of existing buildings new public housing, private and affordable housing, green areas, play areas, community facilities, retail, commercial and more. This is the start of what could be a new vision and model of regeneration. Residents and community groups will be working with DCC to develop this vision into a Masterplan for regeneration in the coming months."
Dublin City Council stated: "we are committed to the regeneration of Dolphin House and Park. We are providing an architect and other resources to work with the community to develop a Masterplan in the coming months. We believe, as the residents have stated, that regeneration is absolutely necessary and we look forward to working with residents to achieve that."
Dolphin House and DCC have learned from other communities that you have to address the social issues in parallel to physical building plans. So we are working, without resources to start developing a social plan and initiatives: particularly around children, young people and their families: but that will need funding.
Despite the current economic climate we believe it is important to continue with developing regeneration plans because the cost of investing in regeneration now is only a fraction of what will have to be spent on prison places, drug treatment, unemployment support, school drop out in the future. Furthermore, if billions can be provided to private pensions subsidies and buying shares in Anglo Irish Bank why not regeneration for poor communities?