Development planned at Sunbeam

80 housing units are to be built on the Sunbeam site which went ablaze this week.

It was a busy Sunday night for fire crews from Ballyvolane, Ballincollig and Anglesea Street stations as they battled a substantial fire at the derelict Sunbeam site in Blackpool.

A spokesperson for Respond Housing Agency confirmed to the Cork Independent that it’s to build 80 units on the site while another 28 are planned for other parts of the northside suburb.

A Cork City Council housing report from April indicates that the 80 units on Redforge Road are estimated to be completed by April 2020.

Meanwhile, an investigation is now underway as to how the fire started, although initial reports would suggest arson as the building has been derelict for some time.

Fire crews responded to reports of a fire at the site at 5.30pm on Sunday and worked hard to contain the blaze for more than 12 hours.

Cork City Fire Brigade extinguished the fire in the early hours of the morning and crews stayed on site until lunchtime on Monday to monitor for any hotspots.

When crews first arrived, they needed to use a 32 metre hydraulic platform which delivered over 2,000 litres of water a minute to the fire.

The Cork City Civil Defence drone team was also on hand to assist the fire brigade as they captured footage of where the fire was spreading to in the building on Sunday night.

This fire is the second one at the site this year with fire crews attending another one in January.