‘Expensive benches’ a public relations failure as 'CityTrees' go into storage

Cork City Council’s €350,000 ‘robot trees’, which were removed at short notice last weekend, are to be placed in storage while students at University College Cork (UCC) and Munster Technological University (MTU) ponder an alternative use for them.

The five 4m tall ‘CityTrees’, which were installed on Patrick Street and the Grand Parade in August 2021, contained moss walls designed to filter pollutants from the air.

They cost €355,106 to install, and this was covered under a €4m allocation from the National Transport Authority to Cork City Council.

Between August 2022 and September 2023, maintenance of the units cost €17,880. Subsequent maintenance costs have not been published.

Seating

On Sunday morning, councillors received an email from the council saying that the bases of the units would be kept for seating, and the local authority would be partnering with “the UCC/MTU t Cork Centre for Architectural Education to explore a repurposing of the structures”.

Separately, the senior member of Cork City Council’s executive, who had initially championed the devices, said they had not worked as well as had been expected, and were to be placed in storage indefinitely.

David Joyce, director of services, told The Echo: “The equipment is going into storage now, until we can find another use for it.” He said such a use might be in an indoor location.

“I can’t answer for definite when, or what we might be doing, but, yes, we are actively looking to reuse them,” said Mr Joyce.

A spokesperson for the CCAE said that it intended to “explore sustainable design ideas for the reuse of the moss trees with the involvement of a multidisciplinary group of students, in collaboration with Cork City Council”.

Stored indefinitely

It is understood that there are no immediate plans for the CCAE to take possession of the devices, and they are to, instead, be stored indefinitely by the council.

Speaking to The Echo, Fianna Fáil councillor Colm Kelleher, who was lord mayor when the moss walls were unveiled, said he had expressed “grave misgivings” about them at the time.

“This is something that I, and other councillors, had queried the value of at the time, and we have done repeatedly since then,” said Mr Kelleher.

“These things have already cost in excess of the price of a house, and now that they have been decommissioned, I would question where they are going into storage while we wait for UCC and MTU to figure out how best to put these things to use,” he added. 

"Although I fail to see how they can be put to use when they don’t work in the first place.”

Labour Party councillor Peter Horgan said: “Ultimately, in my view, these were expensive benches that did serious public relations damage to other climate action measures that must be adopted in cleaning our air and reducing emissions,” he said.

Cork City Council was asked for comment.