Dr. Lorraine D'Arcy:

I refer to a project I worked on when I was doing consultancy before I returned to academia. It involved Oliver Plunkett St. in Cork. We worked on surveys in the area and spoke to many shopkeepers who shared those concerns. They were really worried about that. We did much engagement and when pedestrianisation was introduced, there was an initial drop in footfall but four years later, it won European street of the year. There is a phase in behaviour change; generally there is an initial drop-off and then we find there is an increase in time when people become more familiar with the change and the street becomes a destination to be enjoyed.

We have not traditionally done evaluations in Ireland. We have anecdotally great examples, including Tralee and other places all around the country where we can find people speaking locally about them. We have not been formally evaluating them and this is a real strength of the project in Blackrock, where we have done such an evaluation.

In the Cork project and numerous places, I have noticed shopkeeper concerns about parking spaces outside their shops but we have found, more often than not, the shopkeepers themselves are parking in those spaces. We must be aware of that. Thinking about people's behaviour we must also understand that people fear change. We must understand their concerns. They might not want to say they have nowhere to park their cars so we must work with them and allow them to outline their concerns.