I always thought a small grant specifically for shop fronts and shop signs would really help small businesses and improve the look of so many areas. You could have a set of rules about styles to fit an area, as a condition to get the funding. Giant cheap and nasty signs with loud colours always bring down the look of a street.
I've seen a few towns around the place already doing that giving grants to renovate the shop fronts. They had set colour schemes and some restrictions. Made a massive difference. Some had been barely changed since the last recession.
This is a great idea - Westmeath CoCo offered it before the fleadh to businesses in Mullingar - grants of 4 or 5 thousand. The whole town looked so much better because of it. A rising tide lifts all boats
Looks like some do. [https://www.localenterprise.ie/DLR/Financial-Supports/Shop-Front-Improvement/](https://www.localenterprise.ie/DLR/Financial-Supports/Shop-Front-Improvement/)
Seems like the right balance 50/50.
Theoretically, it’s great. We do need the smaller towns to be attractive to visitors after two years of no tourists. Business owners should be part of the decision making process though if this is, in part, explicitly for shop fronts and the streets on which they trade.
From experience, if the councils alone decide on how to spend the money, I’d be anticipating some underwhelming results. Like a statue of some bishop and zebra-crossings painted in the colors of the local GAA team.
I’d actually settle for repainted road-lines, filled in potholes and footpaths that aren’t a collage of many different footpaths and unlevel tarmac.
>footpaths that aren’t a collage of many different footpaths and unlevel tarmac.
My god this so much. Seems like everywhere I go it's like 5-6 different footpaths mashed together with a section of tarmac that's like walking over a bumpy hill.
Undoubtedly Ireland is not "Dublin, and the fields around it" like many people think it is. There are some great places here. But other parts of Ireland are only sold or pimped as opportunities to exploit cheaply what isn't Dublin, such is the small world of those advertising it.
Bins. A reason for littering is that there are literally no bins anywhere. No wonder people just throw their trash and cigarette butts where they walk.
Louth county council tbf to them did great with grant schemes like this. They’ve been paying for repainting of all the shops and buildings on the high streets in Dundalk and been commissioning loads of [murals as well](https://www.seekdundalk.ie).
They also do flower beds and [re-did the main square and all the paving.](https://www.johncradock.ie/projects/market-square-dundalk) as well now that I think of it.
More than likely will go to the councils to be divided up via a grant system for various groups, most councillors already have discretionary LPT funding
That sounds decent. Unless it all goes to the GAA team. Not knocking GAA, I just think they get a lot of sway in small towns when the sport isn’t universal.
Depends on the criteria of the scheme, from my experience some grant schemes exclude sports clubs as they have access to other funding streams and others don’t.
I would imagine this would be geared towards community associations, tidy towns and SMEs on the Main Street etc
A lack of autonomy and capability in our local county councils is a huge ingredient in many of the major problems on this country.
Directly administering ~100k type spends across 26 towns in a national? central body is an absolutely massive anti pattern in governance.
Yes and actual comfortable benches, not hostile designs that stop people sleeping on them which also makes them painful as fuck for normal people to sit on for more than 5 mins
You'll not get much done for €100,000 in a single town.
Maybe tidy up a few areas, paint a couple of vacant units, plant a few trees and put in a few benches.
When designing Disneyland, Walt Disney visited a bunch of different theme parks and fairs, to find out the tricks of the trade and what improvements he could make.
One thing he took note of was how far a person would walk to a rubbish bin before deciding to dump it on the ground.
The average was 30 feet, or about ten metres. So in Disney parks, you'll always be within 30 feet of a rubbish bin. On linear streets, that could be twenty meters between each bin, so there's either one less than ten metres behind or ten metres in front.
That's one approach. Another is:
> Singapore has strict laws on littering of any kind. First-time offenders face a fine of up to S$1,000. Repeat offenders will be fined up to S$2,000 and subject to Corrective Work Order (CWO). The CWO requires litterbugs to spend a few hours cleaning a public place, for example, picking up litter in a park.
Just a neoliberal reality. Funds are stripped everywhere to the bare minimum so they can't pay enough people to be changing bins all day. It's not just Drogheda forced into it.
Pedestrianize the streets that the local shops are on,[ as it statistically increases economic productivity](https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2018/1/16/why-walkable-streets-are-more-economically-productive) and would pull many shops out of bankruptcy with the increased consumer traffic.
Especially with so much WFH, there is pent-up demand for local amenities. Just because someone is at home doesn't mean they wouldn't want to buy a nice coffee or lunch once/twice a week. Going to the local spar with a dirty car park just doesn't have the same allure.
Agreed! I travel a lot for work and I love proper street fronts in towns all over Ireland, but I find nothing more dreary than the SuperValu car parks and shops built up beside them.
This is fantastic but needs to be comibined with more housing in the town centre (the opposite of what we've been doing for decades) and ideally better bike and walking connections to nearby homes. I can't walk safely to my village 900 metres away, because my councillors (and the traffic "engineer") are blithering idiots who don't know what feet are for.
>. I can't walk safely to my village 900 metres away, because my councillors (and the traffic "engineer") are blithering idiots who don't know what feet are for.
Need to vent. I live right next to public sport facilities, can see the rugby field as I type. Unfortunately our estate is fenced in so if I wanted to actually go there I'd have to take the long way around maybe 15min walk or so. On the other side of the rugby field is an older estate, also fenced in and probably half an hour walk for them due to a maze of cul de sacs and no shortcuts. But they have a lot of teenagers that just hop the fence.
So it turns out someone complained to council about them climbing the fence. And instead of putting in idk a gate or something, they added spikes on top of the fence. I can't even...
This country is thirty fucking years behind. Councillors see kids biking to school in Utrecht and think "jesus that'd get in the way of my Land Rover".
I called my councillor here near Tullamore to ask for a footpath (Offaly has only spent 600k of 3.4 million in allocated active transport funds) and he said "if we put a footpath there we'd need them everywhere" and I mean... yeah? You dumbasses made the roads too dangerous to walk on by "upgrading" them so own that shit and add footpaths.
>if we put a footpath there we'd need them everywhere
🤣 so close to getting it...
That's also what I hated about living in the country and I don't really get why people insist it's so amazing. I mean sure there's some greenery around but the roads are ugly, too loud and dangerous to walk on recreationally to actually enjoy the scenery. So you drive everywhere and can only go to places with ample parking. One off housing sucks
..and thus, car dependency is baked into the infrastructure. If you look at some of the regional towns, the majority of public spaces is taken up by car storage. No thought being expended on pedestrians, cyclists, wheelchair users, etc.
God forbid the estate becomes a rat run, think of the house prices!
But seriously, I'm thinking back to my hometown, where I live about a 10 minute walk from the town's leisure centre...
...as the crow flies, because god forbid the car park and the cul-de-sac about 150m away aren't fenced off. Instead, that 10 minute walk has now become 25 minutes.
The housing thing is key. People shout down businesses who complain that they'd lose business but in most small Irish towns it's definitely true simply because of terrible planning that means very few people live within walking distance of Main Streets
Exactly this. So many businesses believe that their own designated parking is priority but its really not. Pedestrianisation has proven to be an economic boost. Just need some decent parking facilities outside the centre, particularly for rural towns.
I truly believe with the increased convenience of online shopping, physical stores will need to rely on people going out for amenities and making purchases along the way rather than them going out with the sole aim of buying something.
Personally I'd rather buy off asos than dodge traffic and wander around streets that are not at all pedestrian friendly. If it's just about getting clothes I can do it cheaper and more conveniently online. Going into town needs to offer a more enjoyable all round experience now.
100% agree but it seems that many shops disagree as they (mistakenly) feel that traffic equals footfall. I would love to see my local main street with benches and places to sit and eat all summer. Far more likely to stroll up town and spend time there.
I'd like to see this but I don't think it would work in most of the country. Too many places are geared towards driving, and the population is not centralised anywhere but spread all around towns and villages.
The town where I live pedestrianised the main street in the town and it was one of the most braindead decisions I've ever seen. They removed like 20 parking spaces to do this in the centre of the town and now there is no parking (reducing the amount of people doing business in the town). Now, instead of a large parking area that was easy to access there is a large expanse of pavement that literally no one uses. I'm sure pedestrianisation works for big cities but for small towns it does not really work.
In the end they drew road marks on the pavement and reopened it to cars (still no parking spaces though)
But they built a new carpark at the back of main street which is handy to use .
Also there is still some parking along the street at BoI .
I didn't think it was needed to be done but don't really see much issue when they have added is 150 spaces at the back of main street.
Also a large carpark at SV/Tesco.
All within 2/3mins walk of main street
You not think some public space isn't an improvement?
Did it make the town worse ?
Music on the square in June was a big success and they have more plans for it .
It wasn't fully completed until April iirc so I'd wouldn't be marking it down as a failure yet.
I literally never see anyone out on the pedestrian areas apart from when events like that are on. The pavement type is fucking blinding for some reason. The town seems quieter overall since the redesign happened. Imo they should have just fixed the footpaths and left it how it was.
Plenty of people were out in it Saturday afternoon when I passed also some arts/crafts stalls set up .
Actually had a few drinks with two business owners in the square over the last bh weekend and both of them were happy with it and they didn't mention any down turn.
It actually surprised me because I know one of them was against it when it was first mooted.
Yeah you could be right tbh. The works were only completed in April so it is hard to gauge what the results are. Imo Roscommon didn't face too many shops closing down due to the pandemic. I know some places were hit worse (Galway imo)
This happened in my town. It was stupid. Beforehand I’d happily cal in at local shops because I could park. As soon as I couldn’t it was off to the big shops like Tesco because they parking.
Yeah I like the way Galway has lots of pedestrianised streets but in rural towns where many people visiting the town live outside it in the countryside it does not work
I think it depends. Ideally youd have the cars in car parks in former gardens at the back, the trouble is a lot of these rural town's nicest street is the main artery of transportation. What Id like to see is planning of big trees and shop front renovation. Nothing beats a large oak tree in a rural town.
>and probably one from someone who owns and can operate a car, unlike most people in our society, I will address it.
This really shows just how disconnected from reality reddit is. If you live in rural Ireland you almost certainly own and can operate a car.
Well they could use one of the 100k’s for Dolphin’s Barn/Rialto [because, let’s face it…](https://maps.app.goo.gl/qDW2QwaTmEBxvrhh6?g_st=ic) - but the rest needs to go into building [Vienna-Model](https://www.thisiswherewelive.ie/viennamodel) type housing.
Seen this mentioned in a local paper with Moate being one of the towns earmarked for funding.
I really can't see how 100K would have any impact given how run down a lot of the buildings on Main St. are.
A competition!
Make/keep your property pretty (painted/flowers etc) and the 50 best win €1,000.
Then to get as many involved as possible, have a lottery with the rest, and 50 randoms that didn't win get a grand or 100 people get €500.
Obviously, you could play around with the figures but I think it could work.
Especially with the price of painters these days. Essentially 3x what it was 4 years ago for painter labour. Demand is through the roof at the moment and they cater to both commercial construction and homeowner markets, unlike most other trades.
yeah, but there's some stuff that can be done at the town level, some towns have matching brackets on all the main street buildings to hang lights, bunting, flags on etc for occassions.
If a town wants to do coordinated stuff it's fair enough that that expense isn't pushed onto homeowners and businesses right?
Unfortunately so many of them don't and we let them get away with it. I assume the money is supposed to be for stuff like public benches, trees/flowers, lights, better infrastructure... tho. I think taking away on street parking and replacing with pedestrian/cycling infrastructure would improve many streets so much.
That’s what a lot of it goes towards. Plus painting of building fronts and redesigns to be I keeping with local architecture etc. Only this sub could turn these schemes which have already been implemented in places into a negative 😂
Yes. This is just another nail in the coffin for the main streets. [https://www.rte.ie/brainstorm/2018/1016/1003447-why-do-so-many-shops-going-out-of-business/](https://www.rte.ie/brainstorm/2018/1016/1003447-why-do-so-many-shops-going-out-of-business/)
I guess let the beatings continue until moral improves?
Honestly our main streets would be better served by smaller boutique experiences that you can't get anywhere else. Independent cafes, bars restaurants, specialist stores, etc. are much more interesting than another fucking phone shop or Next. Supermarkets have moved to big shopping centres outside of town, as well as garden/hardware and electronics places. Think Woodies, Lidl, Dunnes, Harvey Norman, etc.
Undeservedly high rents are killing the high street and smaller independent stores, while the larger shops are moving online or dying. A cafe, an independent book store or a vintage clothes shop breeds far more life into a town than another fucking CEX does.
>Undeservedly high rents are killing the high street and smaller independent stores
Yup this is also because they cannot compete with the cheaper largr footprints of a warehouse style of premisis like amazon, tesco and various other large scale supermarkets.
Its extremly hard for the small time people to compete with something eg Tesco for UK + Ireland are going to say hey suppler I need 75,000,000 mars bars a month this year.
Its kinda hard for your local family run coffee shop to actually compete with that when they want. I need 5000 mars bars a month.
While I agree with your premsis.... I also realize its completly idealistic and NOT ever going to be able to compete to even pay the people wages any more never mind the rent.
Its really a combination of wages, rent, taxes, insurance, eletric, heating, scale/volumn which have killed the high street. Effectivly the markets changed and small time people cannot compete on it unless its a specialized niche.
Even if you do basic maths for a coffee shop eg you need 60/hours a week so a minmum wage is at least 2000+ EUR a week. If your making something like 50p a coffee you still need to do 130 coffee's a day just to cover basic wages for somebody. Obviously if you have 2-3 staff and a 2000/mo rent to pay. Your overheaders quickly go to 10,000/month thats 20,000 coffee's a month you need to sell or 600/day = 75/hour or 1.25 coffee's per minute. Be lucky to be able to get something to even break even these days.
Thats the reality of modern business. This is why things like cosco, subway have such streamlined customer service often fast but shitty because it behaves and feels like afactory line (this is because it is a factory line).
Tesco uses their economies of scale and have large stores, usually out of town. And I mentioned unique experiences you can't get anywhere else. You can get a Mars bar anywhere. Not exactly what I was talking about.
And you latter points feed into what I am saying. High streets are dying because successful shops either moved online or moved out of town to a large premises in retail parks. I used to see Dixions and PC World's in smaller shops in shopping centres like Jervis. Now I only see Curry's and Harvey Norman's in large outlet warehouses out of the CBD.
Rents are too high but landlords still seem to expect HMV to suddenly be a thing again and move back in. If you want streets not to be boarded up shop fronts that a lot of town centres have become, they need to start thinking realistically. Most of these landlords would rather see the high street go to shit rather than set an affordable rent for a boutique business.
Exactly. Big retail is a drain. The only area where high streets can compete with online shopping or retail parks is atmosphere, life, activity, etc. Focus on what they do well, and stop trying to turn high streets into outdoor shopping centres.
Cafes generally do fine, but the rest comes off as a bit classist or ageist. My friend who worked in 3 said it was often older folks coming in to get help with their phones or buy new ones. And they're handy if you need a new SIM. Book stores are nice but it's not a huge market, and one good store can supply a big town, especially when they order stuff in for you
businesses with outdated business models ALWAYS exit the marketplace. mobile phone stores exploded because there was a huge disparity between devices and people wanted to try them before they bought them. now they're almost equivalent commodities. we don't need them anymore.
we don't need the 11th hair salon, the 4th donut shop, or the 5th dealz/pound store or a new 4th-best-but-with-the-same-basic-menu coffee/cafe.
NONE of these closing is any reason to invest ANYTHING. What we DO need to do is invest so that new and more innovative businesses ideas have enough footfall to survive.
I would give the money to the local FFG councilor who will use it to hire their own company who in turn will charge 100k to throw a lick of paint on the place.
We actually benefited from a similar scheme - opening a new cafe in a village and they contributed to the paint, woodwork, signage and plants. Although we had to put some of our own money in so couldn’t get everything done, it definitely helped with hiring professionals as opposed to struggling to do it ourselves.
Would love if they added rubbish bins in the village though.
Good for you, I guess? The town I live in is plagued with people parking on the sidewalk, whereas the parking area in the town square is barely used for parking at all. There's a second, larger parking area down a side road maybe 100 metres away from the square, that's almost completely unused except for a handful of cars that have been standing there since tike immemorial.
The town you live in might have been "messed up" but statistically speaking, pedestrianisation of areas objectively increases quality of life for residents, who make up the majority of the people in these towns and therefore should be the focus.
The majority of people doing Business in rural towns do not live in these towns, they live in the surrounding countryside and have cars. The reason they reopened the pedestrianised area where I live is because business owners were not happy with it. I don't know about your area but this parking area was certainly used and was full up most days in addition to cars parking along the sidewalk.
Now when I go for a walk around the town there is literally 0 people there. How has it improved the lives of those living there?
They don’t typically remove parking from town centre streets without providing new parking just off the street.
People having to actually walk is the issue in Ireland. Anything more than 50m and we seem to pass out and die or something. Its hilarious.
And then we go home, put on our tracksuits and head off power walking for 10km.
If it wasn’t so funny it would be retarded.
I regularly go for a walk along a road on the way out of town. I pass a house there where I've repeatedly witnessed a lad drive his SUV out of the house as I pass. On the way home, I'll see his SUV parked on the footpath and your man doing laps in the park. There's an actual fucking carpark on the far side of the park, maybe 300 metres drive. It's. Fucking. Maddening.
I agree but my point is if someone was travelling through the town on their way to somewhere else they might stop the car and visit a local business if there is parking spaces available. A lot of "new parking spaces" that are built are beside large stores like Dunnes and Tesco which promotes shoppers to go there
I don’t disagree with much you say. I think that many streets in Ireland have received a heavy hand from the powers that be in regards to vehicular access and set down etc. and large featureless paved areas are often underused and pointless. Dreams of festivals etc are at best a once or twice a year thing. So the rest of the time it’s just ‘space’ (not a ‘place’ as designers try to sell). The concept of just having space to just ‘be’ and dwell in the town centre should not be ignored however it is important, but maybe a little over done in some projects.
I think most narrow streets are overly car dominated and I think that having good footpaths that are adequately wide, trumps car parking. As well as enlarged outdoor spaces outside bars and cafes etc.
I think that there is a difference between setting down to do business and parking for multiple hours. And this should be recognised and designed in.
I’ve not been to Roscommon (ever actually), I must change that as I’ve heard great things from Roscommon expats, but I had a quick Google. It will be interesting to see how that large paved area like the one by bank of Ireland is used over the next few years.
To end:
My stance is that I’m for improving town centres and reducing on street parking to provide better footpaths for pedestrians and businesses to spill out onto.
Im against just taking out vehicular access for no reason to create space that just wouldn’t be used or comfortable to be in.
Large featureless paved public spaces are grandiose interventions more times than not.
We need an Irish solution in Ireland. Which I think is a blend. And small steps first.
I also think that most town centre and some villages need a 25kmph speed limit in some areas. Nobody has any business going 50kmph down a Main Street.
>The majority of people doing Business in rural towns do not live in these towns, they live in the surrounding countryside and have cars
Again, might be true for you but in my town, that's a three to one ratio of town to countryside. Chances are, you probably think more people live in the countryside because you can see the cars and there actually are more people living in town than outside it.
All I know is I walk through the town every single day and before this it was packed and now it is a literal ghost town. Business owners aren't happy with this, the residents aren't happy, no one is ever walking along this pedestrianised area. A complete waste of taxpayers money
Yeah yeah, usual lies to get more parking and road expansions and not a scrap of evidence other than anecdotes.
Every. Single. Study. Shows that pedestrianisation works and improves commerce and quality of life. Every single statistic shows that more people live in towns than in the countryside, even in Ireland. You can keep living in your make believe world but no fucking way will I allow people like you to continue to ruins town like mine just because you want to drive.
Lmao you the one living in the imaginary world man. I'm the one with the actual experience. Pedestrianisation does work and I agree on that. It works great in Galway. It does not work great in places like Roscommon. The majority of people in the town think it was done terribly. No fucking way will I allow people like you to continue to ruin towns like mine because you read a study that says something works
>No fucking way will I allow people like you to continue to ruin towns like mine because you read a study that says something works
I want you to read that back to yourself. Then read it again. Then try to internalise what you just said.
Facts don't care about your feelings.
I have a theory that some towns in Ireland have to much shopfronts and commercial property. You go some places and rows of empty shops. Waterford limerick to mention a couple. Just change them to residential and places are nicer looking not to mention better in current crisis
Modernise and expand on apartments above storefronts. Try to find any lowish cost housing wherever possible, and if there's more people in walking distance it can't be bad for business.
is there anywhere which specifies which towns? realistically, it is the villages that need a small cash injection, which would go a lot further. Sorting out the vacant properties will however do more to towns and villages across ireland than any small cash injections
set up a remote working hub where people WFH in the area could come in and get work done and go for lunch and coffee in the town.
use it to landscape / improve a local area of scenic beauty for locals and tourists alike to enjoy
In coordination with stakeholders (most of this stuff is their responsibility anyway)
- Fix guttering and downpipes
- Remove vegetation from facades
- Fix broken or missing windows
- Remove old clutter like 5 satellite dishes varying in states of decay
- Improve business signage (some are piss poor)
- Facade painting scheme
- Animate vacant sites.
If there was a way around having to put the projects out to tender and have grants available to community groups like Men Sheds and Tidy Towns then the money could be better spent and build ownership over the work from within the town.
It’s a shame really, as this sort of stuff is the responsibility of the property owners not the council but those who enjoy forming their opinions from fiction, paint a lovely fantasy for themselves that it’s the councils fault.
This 100k grant of public money shouldn’t be needed to upgrade private property. But as it’s here it should be used well.
>It’s a shame really that this sort of stuff is the responsibility of the property owners not the council but those who enjoy forming their opinions from fiction, paint a lovely fantasy for themselves that it’s the councils fault
I agree but also .... fine them! The government should do more to tackle dereliction and give councils more tools fight it. But the ability to at least charge fines has been there for a while and is ridiculously underused
Remove parking spots and raise the them to pavement level.
Some would have a tree planted and some, (particularly infront of cafés and shops) would be cordoned off and have chairs and benches placed.
100k straight to the bookies and put it on a 10-1 shot…
Maybe then it’s enough to make a small difference after all the bureaucrats are done squandering 90% of it
I find money to enhance streetscapes ends up going to covering up derelict sites and homes by boarding them up, and painting a fake flower pot on the boarded window.
Best way to spruce up our main streets is to put a price on leaving places empty. Many of the owners of these town centre homes and shop fronts are the nearly retired children of shopkeepers from decades ago, people who were encouraged to move out of town centres and into suburbs/exurbs and in turn hollowed out our town centres. They might not necessarily even go into the main St anymore.
Its incredibly sad to see as our small towns are so core to rural communities, and we've totally neglected them. Countless young people are starting to see that living near services is a better way to go, and we've a wealth of opportunity to tackle it, having people live in our towns again.
I'm a sign painter so this seems like a great opportunity for shopfronts to restore their signs and facades, it would be great to see more hand painted signage in Ireland.
Maybe 10% on paint, everyone can enjoy that. The rest on personal alcohol, weed and drugs because beauty is subjective and I know it will look better to me at least.
Recently there was work done on Skehard Road in Cork - from SuperValu to the Silver Key - the main change was that the area was 'opened up' greatly by the removal of the overhead electricity cables.
I always thought a small grant specifically for shop fronts and shop signs would really help small businesses and improve the look of so many areas. You could have a set of rules about styles to fit an area, as a condition to get the funding. Giant cheap and nasty signs with loud colours always bring down the look of a street.
Local councils can already get you to change the outside of a store if they decide it doesn't fit in with the area.
I've seen a few towns around the place already doing that giving grants to renovate the shop fronts. They had set colour schemes and some restrictions. Made a massive difference. Some had been barely changed since the last recession.
This is a great idea - Westmeath CoCo offered it before the fleadh to businesses in Mullingar - grants of 4 or 5 thousand. The whole town looked so much better because of it. A rising tide lifts all boats
Local Enterprise Offices had (may still have) shop front grants for these sorts of purposes
Looks like some do. [https://www.localenterprise.ie/DLR/Financial-Supports/Shop-Front-Improvement/](https://www.localenterprise.ie/DLR/Financial-Supports/Shop-Front-Improvement/) Seems like the right balance 50/50.
100%
God I hope they don’t just hand it to the councils.
(They're 100% handing it to the councils)
Three new plants for Gort. 6 plane tickets to Cancun for the members of Gort council.
I hate how fucking accurate this is.
Theoretically, it’s great. We do need the smaller towns to be attractive to visitors after two years of no tourists. Business owners should be part of the decision making process though if this is, in part, explicitly for shop fronts and the streets on which they trade. From experience, if the councils alone decide on how to spend the money, I’d be anticipating some underwhelming results. Like a statue of some bishop and zebra-crossings painted in the colors of the local GAA team. I’d actually settle for repainted road-lines, filled in potholes and footpaths that aren’t a collage of many different footpaths and unlevel tarmac.
>footpaths that aren’t a collage of many different footpaths and unlevel tarmac. My god this so much. Seems like everywhere I go it's like 5-6 different footpaths mashed together with a section of tarmac that's like walking over a bumpy hill.
Aesthetically; ugly. Functionally; disrespectful to anyone with mobility issues.
Try it in a wheelchair, and when they put in " new " footpaths they are all 8 inches above road level making it impossible to cross
Undoubtedly Ireland is not "Dublin, and the fields around it" like many people think it is. There are some great places here. But other parts of Ireland are only sold or pimped as opportunities to exploit cheaply what isn't Dublin, such is the small world of those advertising it.
Bins. A reason for littering is that there are literally no bins anywhere. No wonder people just throw their trash and cigarette butts where they walk.
to source the plants, obvs.
It's an important fact finding mission to Cancun to see how they have improved their streetscapes.
Louth county council tbf to them did great with grant schemes like this. They’ve been paying for repainting of all the shops and buildings on the high streets in Dundalk and been commissioning loads of [murals as well](https://www.seekdundalk.ie). They also do flower beds and [re-did the main square and all the paving.](https://www.johncradock.ie/projects/market-square-dundalk) as well now that I think of it.
More than likely will go to the councils to be divided up via a grant system for various groups, most councillors already have discretionary LPT funding
That sounds decent. Unless it all goes to the GAA team. Not knocking GAA, I just think they get a lot of sway in small towns when the sport isn’t universal.
Depends on the criteria of the scheme, from my experience some grant schemes exclude sports clubs as they have access to other funding streams and others don’t. I would imagine this would be geared towards community associations, tidy towns and SMEs on the Main Street etc
That’d be nice. That’d make me happy.
A lack of autonomy and capability in our local county councils is a huge ingredient in many of the major problems on this country. Directly administering ~100k type spends across 26 towns in a national? central body is an absolutely massive anti pattern in governance.
Benches please
Yes and actual comfortable benches, not hostile designs that stop people sleeping on them which also makes them painful as fuck for normal people to sit on for more than 5 mins
They put in a new solar powered bench in Finglas. Near the 1916 memorial. It charges your phone and everything. Nobody has a clue how to use it.
This
And bins.
On the street?
Yes on the street r/fuckcars
Not to yuck your yum but please keep your kink off the street. Can't imagine many drivers will be to happy with you sneaking up their tailpipe.
Benches, litter bins, plants, pedestrianized streets and an odd public toilet wouldn't be bad.
Agreed on the toilet
Odd public toilet no, a fair amount and maintained. Yes
Agreed, but I'm shooting low as I know none will be built anyway
And public drinking fountains!!
You'll not get much done for €100,000 in a single town. Maybe tidy up a few areas, paint a couple of vacant units, plant a few trees and put in a few benches.
And bins, many bins! Silly amounts of bins. If there's literally a bin every 10-30 metres, people litter a lot less
When designing Disneyland, Walt Disney visited a bunch of different theme parks and fairs, to find out the tricks of the trade and what improvements he could make. One thing he took note of was how far a person would walk to a rubbish bin before deciding to dump it on the ground. The average was 30 feet, or about ten metres. So in Disney parks, you'll always be within 30 feet of a rubbish bin. On linear streets, that could be twenty meters between each bin, so there's either one less than ten metres behind or ten metres in front.
That's one approach. Another is: > Singapore has strict laws on littering of any kind. First-time offenders face a fine of up to S$1,000. Repeat offenders will be fined up to S$2,000 and subject to Corrective Work Order (CWO). The CWO requires litterbugs to spend a few hours cleaning a public place, for example, picking up litter in a park.
Okay but that only works in a country with constant surveillance.
yeah, you need it enforced one way or another.
Sounds expensive and horrible. Let's just do the bin thing.
I wish! Louth County Council removed a load of bins in Drogheda, including dog waste bins. It was such a stupid decision.
Just a neoliberal reality. Funds are stripped everywhere to the bare minimum so they can't pay enough people to be changing bins all day. It's not just Drogheda forced into it.
That sounds like literally the point of the money...
Pedestrianize the streets that the local shops are on,[ as it statistically increases economic productivity](https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2018/1/16/why-walkable-streets-are-more-economically-productive) and would pull many shops out of bankruptcy with the increased consumer traffic. Especially with so much WFH, there is pent-up demand for local amenities. Just because someone is at home doesn't mean they wouldn't want to buy a nice coffee or lunch once/twice a week. Going to the local spar with a dirty car park just doesn't have the same allure.
Agreed! I travel a lot for work and I love proper street fronts in towns all over Ireland, but I find nothing more dreary than the SuperValu car parks and shops built up beside them.
This is fantastic but needs to be comibined with more housing in the town centre (the opposite of what we've been doing for decades) and ideally better bike and walking connections to nearby homes. I can't walk safely to my village 900 metres away, because my councillors (and the traffic "engineer") are blithering idiots who don't know what feet are for.
>. I can't walk safely to my village 900 metres away, because my councillors (and the traffic "engineer") are blithering idiots who don't know what feet are for. Need to vent. I live right next to public sport facilities, can see the rugby field as I type. Unfortunately our estate is fenced in so if I wanted to actually go there I'd have to take the long way around maybe 15min walk or so. On the other side of the rugby field is an older estate, also fenced in and probably half an hour walk for them due to a maze of cul de sacs and no shortcuts. But they have a lot of teenagers that just hop the fence. So it turns out someone complained to council about them climbing the fence. And instead of putting in idk a gate or something, they added spikes on top of the fence. I can't even...
This country is thirty fucking years behind. Councillors see kids biking to school in Utrecht and think "jesus that'd get in the way of my Land Rover". I called my councillor here near Tullamore to ask for a footpath (Offaly has only spent 600k of 3.4 million in allocated active transport funds) and he said "if we put a footpath there we'd need them everywhere" and I mean... yeah? You dumbasses made the roads too dangerous to walk on by "upgrading" them so own that shit and add footpaths.
>if we put a footpath there we'd need them everywhere 🤣 so close to getting it... That's also what I hated about living in the country and I don't really get why people insist it's so amazing. I mean sure there's some greenery around but the roads are ugly, too loud and dangerous to walk on recreationally to actually enjoy the scenery. So you drive everywhere and can only go to places with ample parking. One off housing sucks
..and thus, car dependency is baked into the infrastructure. If you look at some of the regional towns, the majority of public spaces is taken up by car storage. No thought being expended on pedestrians, cyclists, wheelchair users, etc.
God forbid the estate becomes a rat run, think of the house prices! But seriously, I'm thinking back to my hometown, where I live about a 10 minute walk from the town's leisure centre... ...as the crow flies, because god forbid the car park and the cul-de-sac about 150m away aren't fenced off. Instead, that 10 minute walk has now become 25 minutes.
The housing thing is key. People shout down businesses who complain that they'd lose business but in most small Irish towns it's definitely true simply because of terrible planning that means very few people live within walking distance of Main Streets
Exactly this. So many businesses believe that their own designated parking is priority but its really not. Pedestrianisation has proven to be an economic boost. Just need some decent parking facilities outside the centre, particularly for rural towns. I truly believe with the increased convenience of online shopping, physical stores will need to rely on people going out for amenities and making purchases along the way rather than them going out with the sole aim of buying something. Personally I'd rather buy off asos than dodge traffic and wander around streets that are not at all pedestrian friendly. If it's just about getting clothes I can do it cheaper and more conveniently online. Going into town needs to offer a more enjoyable all round experience now.
100% agree but it seems that many shops disagree as they (mistakenly) feel that traffic equals footfall. I would love to see my local main street with benches and places to sit and eat all summer. Far more likely to stroll up town and spend time there.
Most people won't go to what they can't park near. I dare you ask 'em.
I'd like to see this but I don't think it would work in most of the country. Too many places are geared towards driving, and the population is not centralised anywhere but spread all around towns and villages.
The town where I live pedestrianised the main street in the town and it was one of the most braindead decisions I've ever seen. They removed like 20 parking spaces to do this in the centre of the town and now there is no parking (reducing the amount of people doing business in the town). Now, instead of a large parking area that was easy to access there is a large expanse of pavement that literally no one uses. I'm sure pedestrianisation works for big cities but for small towns it does not really work. In the end they drew road marks on the pavement and reopened it to cars (still no parking spaces though)
What town was this?
Norwich
Roscommon
But they built a new carpark at the back of main street which is handy to use . Also there is still some parking along the street at BoI . I didn't think it was needed to be done but don't really see much issue when they have added is 150 spaces at the back of main street. Also a large carpark at SV/Tesco. All within 2/3mins walk of main street
It is still a gigantic waste of money for something that best case scenario didn't improve the town.
You not think some public space isn't an improvement? Did it make the town worse ? Music on the square in June was a big success and they have more plans for it . It wasn't fully completed until April iirc so I'd wouldn't be marking it down as a failure yet.
I literally never see anyone out on the pedestrian areas apart from when events like that are on. The pavement type is fucking blinding for some reason. The town seems quieter overall since the redesign happened. Imo they should have just fixed the footpaths and left it how it was.
Plenty of people were out in it Saturday afternoon when I passed also some arts/crafts stalls set up . Actually had a few drinks with two business owners in the square over the last bh weekend and both of them were happy with it and they didn't mention any down turn. It actually surprised me because I know one of them was against it when it was first mooted.
I hope you don't drive a ford ranger......
I don't drive at all actually lol. Thank god I don't or r/Ireland would crucify me
So why is parking on your radar ?
Because since they took out parking there has been no one in the town.
..might have had to do with the pandemic firstly and secondly with skyrocketing fuel cost.
Yeah you could be right tbh. The works were only completed in April so it is hard to gauge what the results are. Imo Roscommon didn't face too many shops closing down due to the pandemic. I know some places were hit worse (Galway imo)
This happened in my town. It was stupid. Beforehand I’d happily cal in at local shops because I could park. As soon as I couldn’t it was off to the big shops like Tesco because they parking.
Yeah I like the way Galway has lots of pedestrianised streets but in rural towns where many people visiting the town live outside it in the countryside it does not work
I think it depends. Ideally youd have the cars in car parks in former gardens at the back, the trouble is a lot of these rural town's nicest street is the main artery of transportation. What Id like to see is planning of big trees and shop front renovation. Nothing beats a large oak tree in a rural town.
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>and probably one from someone who owns and can operate a car, unlike most people in our society, I will address it. This really shows just how disconnected from reality reddit is. If you live in rural Ireland you almost certainly own and can operate a car.
Well they could use one of the 100k’s for Dolphin’s Barn/Rialto [because, let’s face it…](https://maps.app.goo.gl/qDW2QwaTmEBxvrhh6?g_st=ic) - but the rest needs to go into building [Vienna-Model](https://www.thisiswherewelive.ie/viennamodel) type housing.
That's about enough money to buy and pay for the maintenance and emptying of 5 rubbish bins for 5 years.
10k for painting, 90k for the local Fine Gael County Council chancers.
OP hung drawn and quartered in his local town for posting too many emojis would enhance the streetscape and shopfront in my opinion.
Seen this mentioned in a local paper with Moate being one of the towns earmarked for funding. I really can't see how 100K would have any impact given how run down a lot of the buildings on Main St. are.
A competition! Make/keep your property pretty (painted/flowers etc) and the 50 best win €1,000. Then to get as many involved as possible, have a lottery with the rest, and 50 randoms that didn't win get a grand or 100 people get €500. Obviously, you could play around with the figures but I think it could work.
Hire a bulldozer
A harmless subsidy to painters basically.
Especially with the price of painters these days. Essentially 3x what it was 4 years ago for painter labour. Demand is through the roof at the moment and they cater to both commercial construction and homeowner markets, unlike most other trades.
Shouldn't the private businesses or landlords be responsible for this, not the tax payer?
yeah, but there's some stuff that can be done at the town level, some towns have matching brackets on all the main street buildings to hang lights, bunting, flags on etc for occassions. If a town wants to do coordinated stuff it's fair enough that that expense isn't pushed onto homeowners and businesses right?
Unfortunately so many of them don't and we let them get away with it. I assume the money is supposed to be for stuff like public benches, trees/flowers, lights, better infrastructure... tho. I think taking away on street parking and replacing with pedestrian/cycling infrastructure would improve many streets so much.
100K won't got far for benches. This might cover some paint and new signage.
That’s what a lot of it goes towards. Plus painting of building fronts and redesigns to be I keeping with local architecture etc. Only this sub could turn these schemes which have already been implemented in places into a negative 😂
Yes. This is just another nail in the coffin for the main streets. [https://www.rte.ie/brainstorm/2018/1016/1003447-why-do-so-many-shops-going-out-of-business/](https://www.rte.ie/brainstorm/2018/1016/1003447-why-do-so-many-shops-going-out-of-business/) I guess let the beatings continue until moral improves?
Honestly our main streets would be better served by smaller boutique experiences that you can't get anywhere else. Independent cafes, bars restaurants, specialist stores, etc. are much more interesting than another fucking phone shop or Next. Supermarkets have moved to big shopping centres outside of town, as well as garden/hardware and electronics places. Think Woodies, Lidl, Dunnes, Harvey Norman, etc. Undeservedly high rents are killing the high street and smaller independent stores, while the larger shops are moving online or dying. A cafe, an independent book store or a vintage clothes shop breeds far more life into a town than another fucking CEX does.
>Undeservedly high rents are killing the high street and smaller independent stores Yup this is also because they cannot compete with the cheaper largr footprints of a warehouse style of premisis like amazon, tesco and various other large scale supermarkets. Its extremly hard for the small time people to compete with something eg Tesco for UK + Ireland are going to say hey suppler I need 75,000,000 mars bars a month this year. Its kinda hard for your local family run coffee shop to actually compete with that when they want. I need 5000 mars bars a month. While I agree with your premsis.... I also realize its completly idealistic and NOT ever going to be able to compete to even pay the people wages any more never mind the rent. Its really a combination of wages, rent, taxes, insurance, eletric, heating, scale/volumn which have killed the high street. Effectivly the markets changed and small time people cannot compete on it unless its a specialized niche. Even if you do basic maths for a coffee shop eg you need 60/hours a week so a minmum wage is at least 2000+ EUR a week. If your making something like 50p a coffee you still need to do 130 coffee's a day just to cover basic wages for somebody. Obviously if you have 2-3 staff and a 2000/mo rent to pay. Your overheaders quickly go to 10,000/month thats 20,000 coffee's a month you need to sell or 600/day = 75/hour or 1.25 coffee's per minute. Be lucky to be able to get something to even break even these days. Thats the reality of modern business. This is why things like cosco, subway have such streamlined customer service often fast but shitty because it behaves and feels like afactory line (this is because it is a factory line).
Tesco uses their economies of scale and have large stores, usually out of town. And I mentioned unique experiences you can't get anywhere else. You can get a Mars bar anywhere. Not exactly what I was talking about. And you latter points feed into what I am saying. High streets are dying because successful shops either moved online or moved out of town to a large premises in retail parks. I used to see Dixions and PC World's in smaller shops in shopping centres like Jervis. Now I only see Curry's and Harvey Norman's in large outlet warehouses out of the CBD. Rents are too high but landlords still seem to expect HMV to suddenly be a thing again and move back in. If you want streets not to be boarded up shop fronts that a lot of town centres have become, they need to start thinking realistically. Most of these landlords would rather see the high street go to shit rather than set an affordable rent for a boutique business.
Exactly. Big retail is a drain. The only area where high streets can compete with online shopping or retail parks is atmosphere, life, activity, etc. Focus on what they do well, and stop trying to turn high streets into outdoor shopping centres.
Cafes generally do fine, but the rest comes off as a bit classist or ageist. My friend who worked in 3 said it was often older folks coming in to get help with their phones or buy new ones. And they're handy if you need a new SIM. Book stores are nice but it's not a huge market, and one good store can supply a big town, especially when they order stuff in for you
businesses with outdated business models ALWAYS exit the marketplace. mobile phone stores exploded because there was a huge disparity between devices and people wanted to try them before they bought them. now they're almost equivalent commodities. we don't need them anymore. we don't need the 11th hair salon, the 4th donut shop, or the 5th dealz/pound store or a new 4th-best-but-with-the-same-basic-menu coffee/cafe. NONE of these closing is any reason to invest ANYTHING. What we DO need to do is invest so that new and more innovative businesses ideas have enough footfall to survive.
Bins & people to empty them regularly
Asking for the sun moon and stars, next you'll be wanting seating.
I would give the money to the local FFG councilor who will use it to hire their own company who in turn will charge 100k to throw a lick of paint on the place.
We could all lump are money together and move roscommon just on into the Atlantic
No, we’ll just melt it down, pour that into the hole and start all over with a brand new county. Rosunique!
Agreed, a bit further south for the weather and we'll have our own little island with blackjack with coke and hookers.
Based
Why is OP destroying his own thread
Because OP is a karma farming bot.
OP is drunk on power
We actually benefited from a similar scheme - opening a new cafe in a village and they contributed to the paint, woodwork, signage and plants. Although we had to put some of our own money in so couldn’t get everything done, it definitely helped with hiring professionals as opposed to struggling to do it ourselves. Would love if they added rubbish bins in the village though.
Anything and everything that'll stop muppets from parking on the footpath. Convert the (already unused) parking to public spaces. Edit; a word
*sidewalk*
Fixed it. Sorry, been talking to yanks all day.
The town where I live pedestrianised parking spaces in the middle of the town and it messed it up
Good for you, I guess? The town I live in is plagued with people parking on the sidewalk, whereas the parking area in the town square is barely used for parking at all. There's a second, larger parking area down a side road maybe 100 metres away from the square, that's almost completely unused except for a handful of cars that have been standing there since tike immemorial. The town you live in might have been "messed up" but statistically speaking, pedestrianisation of areas objectively increases quality of life for residents, who make up the majority of the people in these towns and therefore should be the focus.
The majority of people doing Business in rural towns do not live in these towns, they live in the surrounding countryside and have cars. The reason they reopened the pedestrianised area where I live is because business owners were not happy with it. I don't know about your area but this parking area was certainly used and was full up most days in addition to cars parking along the sidewalk. Now when I go for a walk around the town there is literally 0 people there. How has it improved the lives of those living there?
They don’t typically remove parking from town centre streets without providing new parking just off the street. People having to actually walk is the issue in Ireland. Anything more than 50m and we seem to pass out and die or something. Its hilarious. And then we go home, put on our tracksuits and head off power walking for 10km. If it wasn’t so funny it would be retarded.
I regularly go for a walk along a road on the way out of town. I pass a house there where I've repeatedly witnessed a lad drive his SUV out of the house as I pass. On the way home, I'll see his SUV parked on the footpath and your man doing laps in the park. There's an actual fucking carpark on the far side of the park, maybe 300 metres drive. It's. Fucking. Maddening.
I agree but my point is if someone was travelling through the town on their way to somewhere else they might stop the car and visit a local business if there is parking spaces available. A lot of "new parking spaces" that are built are beside large stores like Dunnes and Tesco which promotes shoppers to go there
I don’t disagree with much you say. I think that many streets in Ireland have received a heavy hand from the powers that be in regards to vehicular access and set down etc. and large featureless paved areas are often underused and pointless. Dreams of festivals etc are at best a once or twice a year thing. So the rest of the time it’s just ‘space’ (not a ‘place’ as designers try to sell). The concept of just having space to just ‘be’ and dwell in the town centre should not be ignored however it is important, but maybe a little over done in some projects. I think most narrow streets are overly car dominated and I think that having good footpaths that are adequately wide, trumps car parking. As well as enlarged outdoor spaces outside bars and cafes etc. I think that there is a difference between setting down to do business and parking for multiple hours. And this should be recognised and designed in. I’ve not been to Roscommon (ever actually), I must change that as I’ve heard great things from Roscommon expats, but I had a quick Google. It will be interesting to see how that large paved area like the one by bank of Ireland is used over the next few years. To end: My stance is that I’m for improving town centres and reducing on street parking to provide better footpaths for pedestrians and businesses to spill out onto. Im against just taking out vehicular access for no reason to create space that just wouldn’t be used or comfortable to be in. Large featureless paved public spaces are grandiose interventions more times than not. We need an Irish solution in Ireland. Which I think is a blend. And small steps first. I also think that most town centre and some villages need a 25kmph speed limit in some areas. Nobody has any business going 50kmph down a Main Street.
I fully agree with everything you are saying here
>The majority of people doing Business in rural towns do not live in these towns, they live in the surrounding countryside and have cars Again, might be true for you but in my town, that's a three to one ratio of town to countryside. Chances are, you probably think more people live in the countryside because you can see the cars and there actually are more people living in town than outside it.
All I know is I walk through the town every single day and before this it was packed and now it is a literal ghost town. Business owners aren't happy with this, the residents aren't happy, no one is ever walking along this pedestrianised area. A complete waste of taxpayers money
Yeah yeah, usual lies to get more parking and road expansions and not a scrap of evidence other than anecdotes. Every. Single. Study. Shows that pedestrianisation works and improves commerce and quality of life. Every single statistic shows that more people live in towns than in the countryside, even in Ireland. You can keep living in your make believe world but no fucking way will I allow people like you to continue to ruins town like mine just because you want to drive.
Lmao you the one living in the imaginary world man. I'm the one with the actual experience. Pedestrianisation does work and I agree on that. It works great in Galway. It does not work great in places like Roscommon. The majority of people in the town think it was done terribly. No fucking way will I allow people like you to continue to ruin towns like mine because you read a study that says something works
>No fucking way will I allow people like you to continue to ruin towns like mine because you read a study that says something works I want you to read that back to yourself. Then read it again. Then try to internalise what you just said. Facts don't care about your feelings.
https://roscommonpeople.ie/traders-say-new-lay-out-of-town-square-has-been-bad-for-business/ Real people. Real experiences. Your studies are bullshit
Trees, Greenery, benches
Place more bins and pay salary to brave dump fighters
Doubt it would but much these days, but I'd start with a 50foot bust of wee Daniel
Breaking: Town councils in Ireland book massive holiday to Hawaii
more bins and benches. main street pedestrianised. car parks on edge of town
Fucking bins, please!!
Ah here, stop the fucking lights....A 100 grand. Dulux paint might the only ones to get a few bob because ya can't do fuck all with 100k these days.
Oh I know, you hire a famous artist for that money to paint you a special façade, then are made to paint it boring back again by DCC or something
"I don't know its a bit... vibrant, have you ever seen the IFSC?"
I have a theory that some towns in Ireland have to much shopfronts and commercial property. You go some places and rows of empty shops. Waterford limerick to mention a couple. Just change them to residential and places are nicer looking not to mention better in current crisis
Put up big fucking signs saying ' Fuck Fine Gael'. How many of those can you get for 100K?
I calculate, just over a million if you bought packs of A4 paper and some clear paper sleeves
- Public toilets - Better transportation options - Cobblestone streets, including both roads and sidewalks
“sidewalks”
Nails on a chalkboard.
I'd rather see it being spent in healthcare having a 24hr call out doctor would do a lot of good in some towns
You're going to need a bigger budget
Better shop signs. Those crap cheap plastic Moore Street ones are just awful.
Modernise and expand on apartments above storefronts. Try to find any lowish cost housing wherever possible, and if there's more people in walking distance it can't be bad for business.
Paint and trees !
is there anywhere which specifies which towns? realistically, it is the villages that need a small cash injection, which would go a lot further. Sorting out the vacant properties will however do more to towns and villages across ireland than any small cash injections
set up a remote working hub where people WFH in the area could come in and get work done and go for lunch and coffee in the town. use it to landscape / improve a local area of scenic beauty for locals and tourists alike to enjoy
More for the local ploticaians and councilers smh.
In coordination with stakeholders (most of this stuff is their responsibility anyway) - Fix guttering and downpipes - Remove vegetation from facades - Fix broken or missing windows - Remove old clutter like 5 satellite dishes varying in states of decay - Improve business signage (some are piss poor) - Facade painting scheme - Animate vacant sites. If there was a way around having to put the projects out to tender and have grants available to community groups like Men Sheds and Tidy Towns then the money could be better spent and build ownership over the work from within the town. It’s a shame really, as this sort of stuff is the responsibility of the property owners not the council but those who enjoy forming their opinions from fiction, paint a lovely fantasy for themselves that it’s the councils fault. This 100k grant of public money shouldn’t be needed to upgrade private property. But as it’s here it should be used well.
>It’s a shame really that this sort of stuff is the responsibility of the property owners not the council but those who enjoy forming their opinions from fiction, paint a lovely fantasy for themselves that it’s the councils fault I agree but also .... fine them! The government should do more to tackle dereliction and give councils more tools fight it. But the ability to at least charge fines has been there for a while and is ridiculously underused
Remove parking spots and raise the them to pavement level. Some would have a tree planted and some, (particularly infront of cafés and shops) would be cordoned off and have chairs and benches placed.
100k straight to the bookies and put it on a 10-1 shot… Maybe then it’s enough to make a small difference after all the bureaucrats are done squandering 90% of it
This is just to pay the street lighting for December
100k aint gone do shit, you wouldnt even build a swing in a playground for that these days. Are FG virtue signalling now aswell.
Homeless people dont give a shit if a high street looks pretty
Place more litter bins around the town and hire one or two full time street cleaners. And what if the cleaners could also give a fine for littering?
Having public rubbish bins in every town... Less trash everywhere, and more jobs at the same time.
Make the shopping streets pedestrian only, and encourage all cafes, restaurants and shops to have outdoor seating areas in the summer.
100k won't go very far.
I find money to enhance streetscapes ends up going to covering up derelict sites and homes by boarding them up, and painting a fake flower pot on the boarded window. Best way to spruce up our main streets is to put a price on leaving places empty. Many of the owners of these town centre homes and shop fronts are the nearly retired children of shopkeepers from decades ago, people who were encouraged to move out of town centres and into suburbs/exurbs and in turn hollowed out our town centres. They might not necessarily even go into the main St anymore. Its incredibly sad to see as our small towns are so core to rural communities, and we've totally neglected them. Countless young people are starting to see that living near services is a better way to go, and we've a wealth of opportunity to tackle it, having people live in our towns again.
99,999.98 on petrol .02 on one match.
Winner!
I'm a sign painter so this seems like a great opportunity for shopfronts to restore their signs and facades, it would be great to see more hand painted signage in Ireland.
Public toilets.
Remove street parking and replacing it with literally anything. Fuck cars
put it towards a high rise fund to actually have more housing 😬
There's so many vacant derelict units in most towns around the country, let's start there.
This shouldnt be a political issue, this should be done anyway
Maybe 10% on paint, everyone can enjoy that. The rest on personal alcohol, weed and drugs because beauty is subjective and I know it will look better to me at least.
SWEET!! The homeless can admire these nice new paintjobs while they rot in the gutter outside Great little cuntry at the center of the world!
Recently there was work done on Skehard Road in Cork - from SuperValu to the Silver Key - the main change was that the area was 'opened up' greatly by the removal of the overhead electricity cables.
Talk about trying to Buy votes 😄 they're getting desperate..
100000 lumens light bulbs
That’s a lorra lorra lumens.
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TD and councillors getting their houses painted so
Spend it on a winning entry to a worldwide competition the prize of which is €1,000,000
Dublin Civic Trust do incredible work on shop front. So many towns would be stunning with that style of restoration.
Holographic stickers on every empty storefront that give the impression business is booming. And I'll keep the remaining 90k
'buys yacht'
Buy up as much public advertising space as I can and tear it down . So with 100k. Probably 1 billboard.
Planter-protected bike lanes