A series of work to restore Cork City Council's Concert Hall is progressing well ahead of scheduled completion this month.

The hall's original 1930's dance floor is being redeveloped to accommodate the new season of events at the venue.

It is being fully restored following replacement of 157 broken springs in the underfloor structure.

City Architects is delivering the work, which involve removing the old floor and laying steel beams across a line of nine concrete plinths in the sub-floor, repeated 22 times along the length of the hall, with twin sprung flexible couplings at each joint.

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The floor was believed to have been damaged in the 1980's during an exhibition which overloaded and distorted the floor levels, resulting in broken springs and excessive deflection in the support structure. Attempts had been made in previous decades to repair the damaged areas by fitting wedges in place of the broken springs to level up the floor, but this failed to prevent the bounce that had developed in the centre of the Hall.

The Facilities and Works sections of Cork City Council also collaborated on the project.

(CM/JG)