Stores Closing in Sligo **mod warning post #720**

rizzodun

Yes, there was a bus service running up to the retail park at the time, and a park and ride facility would seem link a great idea with the amount of free parking up there.

Andy From Sligo

rizzodun wrote: »

Yes, there was a bus service running up to the retail park at the time, and a park and ride facility would seem link a great idea with the amount of free parking up there.

maybe a Christmas time - not sure any other time of the year , lets be honest there isnt that great selection/variety of shops in Sligo town centre to warrant it - you got to be honest, even though I hate it because I would like to say my own home town is better than all the rest ... but even Balina has a better selection and better laid out than Sligo town centre and thats saying something. and Castlebar is good - both county mayo .. they dont seem to have been too worried about out of town expansion/retail parks and their town centres still have people going to there and not a ghost town.

I remember when Galway was like Sligo a bit when I used to go there in the 90's, .. now look at it these days and how it flourished and expanded with retail parks and all that, and a good selection of shops.

I cannot think any other town nearby who has installed such an environ plan dictating what can be sold and where or what shops can go in a retail park.

when I go shopping in sligo it seems like a chore with the parking and the narrow streets, the same old same old shops, shops that are popular (chains i suppose you could call them) dotted here and there in the town centre and not grouped together, the pedestrian unfriendly o'connell street, the (Q) 'shopping centre'(?) with its silly layout and empty units... and feel much more relieved when i've shopped in other towns nearby than when I have shopped in Sligo.

I just 'use' Sligo town just because its convenient now, and it shouldnt be like that , it should be a nice experience shopping locally and spending money in your own town , but it dont feel like that ... well not to me. half/most of the shops here dont interest me .

i mean whenever I hear of a shop opening up in Sligo these days, is it something exciting like a Marks and spencers or an Iceland or harvey norman (although there is a rumour) or something like that, something different ??? ... no, its more than likely yet another coffee shop or clothes shop and there are enough of them already in Sligo

Shelpy

Andy From Sligo wrote: »

naw, your grand I dont need a degree in retail planning - sounds boring .

Good, in that case, and if you are really interested in the subject, why not go away and read about it a little bit - either that or accept your opinions on such a subject are entirely uninformed.

Andy From Sligo wrote: »

Look the way I see it (and sorry if I am not factually correct) I seem to recall that COC attempted in no way whatsoever to get the rules overturned for the conditions of what the retail park could and could not sell and i think they should have done , in fact they were pro in keeping all retail shops in the town centre itself

What does it matter what you think the CoC should have done? They are a private body representing their members only. They don't represent you, or the public, yet many people like you seem to think they do. This is fine - because they have precisely zero power to enact public regulation in Sligo, on planning or anything else. As I've already made clear that is the job of the public administration bodies of Sligo along with central government and other state bodies like An Bord Pleanala, they make the rules, not any private association like the CoC. If you don't like the rules - change your public administration at the ballot box, it was the public who choose the people who make the rules as they are now.

Andy From Sligo wrote: »

- now i think that the way sligo town centre is laid out with its tiny streets and bad access for delivery vehicles and parking dotted all over the place I think all you can do apart from flattening the whole of Sligo Town centre and starting from scratch is to build outwards and use the use of out of town retail parks and lift this stupid environ plan

Thankfully you are showing your ignorance of urban planning again. I'm not postulating - there are many factual examples in the real world of where urban regeneration has been hugely successful in places with far bigger issues than Sligo town centre. You have the confidence to talk about lifting a "stupid" environ plan even though you obviously have no grasp of the legal and regulatory framework within which planning is done generally nor about the specifics of how the current situation in Sligo has been arrived at. In making such statements you assume you know more than the people whose professional career it is to do such work. Would you assume as a layman you knew better than a medical doctor as quickly as you do on planning?

Andy From Sligo wrote: »

... but so many people are frightened that if they do that then no-one will bother to go and shop in Sligo town centre ever again and it would become a ghost town. I don't think so, but obviously some people have seen it happen in *some* towns and think Sligo would go the same way and thats why they have played safe (and stifled retail progress in Sligo) because maybe their Chrystal ball worked better than mine.

To be honest, you don't even need that much planning knowledge to understand this, but you seem incapable of even this simple reasoning. If vacancy rates in Sligo town are already high and the general ambiance of the town is negatively affected by this - and the town has been crying out for the redevelopment of the centre block (planning for which is going on 30 years now) do you not see that allowing the building of more retail space on the outside of town will A) Increase vacancy rates in the town centre Contribute to further negative impact on the general ambiance of the town centre and C) Make private capital which is required to deliver the centre block regeneration of the town centre less likely to invest?

It's been going on for 30 years now the 'master plan' to regenerate the centre block of Sligo town which would be of huge benefit to the town. Both private and public interests in Sligo town could see the potential and the need for it 30 years ago and started consulting about it that long ago. Are there any other towns of Sligo's prominence which don't have a multi-storey car park attached to retail in the town centre and instead have a massive prime site devoted to a sad expanse of tarmac surface car park, literally adjoining the main street in the town? Do you want that still to be the case when your grandchildren maybe live in Sligo? I sure don't. The private money that it will require to eventually make this finally happen are not charities - they will invest the money to do it if they can see a return on their investment. If unfettered out of town development was allowed (far, far cheaper to build and rent than regenerating the town centre) - do you not see this would be the nail in the coffin for Sligo town centre ever being brought up to a modern standard? Then you are out of the realm of common sense and back into needing some awareness of the profession of planning - lax out of town development regulation ruining towns and the social fabric of communities with particular impact on the most vulnerable (old and can't drive, low income and can't afford a car) is literally planning 101 - you wouldn't need to go past first year in a degree to learn about it. A huge body of research has been done on the worst examples of it which have already happened. Sligo doesn't need to look into a crystal ball - it just needs to heed the mistakes which have already been made and thoroughly documented countless times over.

As I said before, I, nor any professional planner I have ever heard of is absolutely against out of town development - it just needs to be planned in a way that means it is not at the expense of ruining town centres which have been the hub of their communities for literally hundreds of years. Once Sligo town centre has got the private investment and completed the plans which have been on the books for it for 30 years now, then and only then, if there is still appetite from commercial interests to do more out of town development it could well be warranted.

Shelpy

Andy From Sligo wrote: »

I cannot think any other town nearby who has installed such an environ plan dictating what can be sold and where or what shops can go in a retail park.

No? Have you checked, or just consulted your inner complete absence of knowledge on the subject? Literally every public local administration body in Ireland is mandated by central government to develop such a plan (as is best international planning/local government practice) and planning permission for any development big/small/town/country/residential/retail/service cannot be granted without specifying the specific use of the development. Planning is not about bricks and mortar - it's about designing what services and activities go where geographically in order to give people a good quality of life. You are beyond clueless - you don't even know that you're clueless.

Andy From Sligo wrote: »

when I go shopping in sligo it seems like a chore with the parking and the narrow streets, the same old same old shops, shops that are popular (chains i suppose you could call them) dotted here and there in the town centre and not grouped together, the pedestrian unfriendly o'connell street, the (Q) 'shopping centre'(?) with its silly layout and empty units... and feel much more relieved when i've shopped in other towns nearby than when I have shopped in Sligo.

Something we can agree on. The whole reason we need planning regulations is in order to fix this. The unfettered out of town development you are advocating will exacerbate and entrench for many decades the exact problem you have described in the paragraph above. That's fine if you opinion is to hell with Sligo town, let it rot and we'll change the focus to out of town. But that's not what I want, I don't want the historic town centre which has been the hub of the life of my and thousands of families for generations and hundreds of years to be left to rot just so that large multinational stores can make more profit more quickly in an out of town development than if they are guided by public regulation to carry out the same function with slightly less profit for them inside the existing town. Once they have been guided to invest to bring the centre of town up to modern standard, if they still need more space, then, and only then - sure build more outside the town centre. That is not the case at the moment. There is no town of equal or greater prominence in Ireland crying out more for regeneration of its centre more so than Sligo.

Andy From Sligo

Gallagher Meats in Ballymote closing after nine years of being there.

Taken from OceanFm website:
______________________________________________________________

Another business in a rural town is to close.

This time it’s Gallagher Meats in Ballymote, in South Sligo.

It has been in business for the past nine years.

As well as meats, it also began operating some time ago as a newsagents, selling items such as stationery and cards.

It’s last day of business will be Thursday week.

______________________________________________________________

tinpib

Shelpy wrote: »

Thankfully you are showing your ignorance of urban planning again.

Shelpy, could you play the ball and not the man here? There is no need for the personal attacks. It seems Andy has hit a raw nerve with you, it's not what you say it's how you say it.

Instead of what I have quoted above you could simply say something like "actually Andy that is not the case.."

What you say is informative, but you could make it a bit more palatable for the rest of us that are interested in what you have to say.

Shelpy

tinpib wrote: »

Shelpy, could you play the ball and not the man here? There is no need for the personal attacks. It seems Andy has hit a raw nerve with you, it's not what you say it's how you say it.

Instead of what I have quoted above you could simply say something like "actually Andy that is not the case.."

What you say is informative, but you could make it a bit more palatable for the rest of us that are interested in what you have to say.

I could and you are right, I would prefer the discussion in a different tone. However it's understandable when you have to constantly refute things that are so patently untrue yet asserted with such confidence - that is rank arrogance I'm responding to. A bedrock of any civil conversation or debate is knowing what you don't know and not trying to make up for it in patently untrue or wrong bluster, or worse, having the hubris to denigrate that which you in the same breath display complete ignorance of. I wasn't the one who used the term 'stupid' in this exchange to refer to something which I have obviously never read and don't understand for example. That is what hits a nerve.

I'll try harder.

sligoblue

Shelpy wrote: »

I could and you are right, I would prefer the discussion in a different tone. However it's understandable when you have to constantly refute things that are so patently untrue yet asserted with such confidence - that is rank arrogance I'm responding to. A bedrock of any civil conversation or debate is knowing what you don't know and not trying to make up for it in patently untrue or wrong bluster, or worse, having the hubris to denigrate that which you in the same breath display complete ignorance of. I wasn't the one who used the term 'stupid' in this exchange to refer to something which I have obviously never read and don't understand for example. That is what hits a nerve.

I'll try harder.

I would have thought the bedrock of any civil conversation, is to be civil. Once you start insulting the other person, you lose the debate.

Shelpy

sligoblue wrote: »

I would have thought the bedrock of any civil conversation, is to be civil. Once you start insulting the other person, you lose the debate.

How can the bedrock of a concept be the concept itself? That's nonsense in the strict meaning of the word. A thing and the thing's bedrock cannot both be the one thing - they are two different things. I don't think civil conversation and debate has a single "the bedrock" as you said - it has many bedrocks which support it.

I wish we could rewind the conversation and be more civil and not call things we have no knowledge of which are produced by people who have dedicated their career to a profession "stupid", particularly when the person using the term "stupid" displays a total absence of knowledge of said thing they are calling stupid. I simply and plainly pointed out ignorance. Insult is quite a nebulous term, but if you consider truth which someone might choose to take offence to as an insult, then I do not agree that that has no place is civil discourse - quite the opposite, irresponsible authority has always used such a definition of insult for its own selfish purposes to stifle civil debate.

Andy From Sligo

Shelpy wrote: »

How can the bedrock of a concept be the concept itself? That's nonsense in the strict meaning of the word. A thing and the thing's bedrock cannot both be the one thing - they are two different things. I don't think civil conversation and debate has a single "the bedrock" as you said - it has many bedrocks which support it.

I wish we could rewind the conversation and be more civil and not call things we have no knowledge of which are produced by people who have dedicated their career to a profession "stupid", particularly when the person using the term "stupid" displays a total absence of knowledge of said thing they are calling stupid. I simply and plainly pointed out ignorance. Insult is quite a nebulous term, but if you consider truth which someone might choose to take offence to as an insult, then I do not agree that that has no place is civil discourse - quite the opposite, irresponsible authority has always used such a definition of insult for its own selfish purposes to stifle civil debate.

bloody hell - you swallowed a dictionary by any chance? - most of what you said has gone over my head -

anyway I use the word "Stupid" for a lot of things a lot of the time - Stupid TV, Stupid laptop... stupid posts on boards ... - would it have been better if I called it 'nonsense' instead for you?

OK then, just because of a nonsense environ plan up at the retail park its stopped certain retail businesses from setting up , up there ...

tinpib

Ah here Shelpy, now you are arguing about arguing :pac:

We are gone into argu-ception here.

Shelpy

Andy From Sligo wrote: »

bloody hell - you swallowed a dictionary by any chance? - most of what you said has gone over my head -

anyway I use the word "Stupid" for a lot of things a lot of the time - Stupid TV, Stupid laptop... stupid posts on boards ... - would it have been better if I called it 'nonsense' instead for you?

OK then, just because of a nonsense environ plan up at the retail park its stopped certain retail businesses from setting up , up there ...

I was perfectly fine with your use of the term stupid, I don't take offence so easily. It was someone else who pointed out the tone wasn't great in the conversation - I was then making the point to them that that was the case on both sides of the argument.

Andy From Sligo

Shelpy wrote: »

I was perfectly fine with your use of the term stupid, I don't take offence so easily. It was someone else who pointed out the tone wasn't great in the conversation - I was then making the point to them that that was the case on both sides of the argument.

ah right ... er I think.

yeah, we cannot all agree to like other peoples ideas on stuff on here - and we cannot all be educated and know the facts and in's and outs of retail marketing , does that mean though people cannot have a voice or opinion on something they feel passionate about though? - sometimes people see things on the outside looking in (me included) and pick up bits here and there (and get it wrong or not factually correct - including me) but you know at the end of the day we should all stick with what we believe or believe to be the truth.

T-Bird

Unfortunately because of its location, the Cararoe retail park has to abide by planning guidelines.


Guidelines for Planning Authorities Retail Planning

Its not just Ireland

Andy From Sligo

T-Bird wrote: »

Unfortunately because of its location, the Cararoe retail park has to abide by planning guidelines.


Guidelines for Planning Authorities Retail Planning

Its not just Ireland

I havent read the plan there you posted yet, but i can guess its in place to protect businesses in the town centre from these 'nasty' retail parks taking business away from them - but what ever happened to competition and the best shops surviving? - this is like having something natural happen but then manufacturing the outcome so it survives (or in theory anyway)

by safeguarding the shops already in town centres this must mean it can be a nightmare having to fill retail units at a retail park and consequently lead to empty units and other units trading up there need as much footfall of customers up there as they can, if only a certain amount of customers will go can only buy certain goods then this cannot be good for the other businesses that have decided up in the retail parks.

... and these plans, by protecting the existing businesses in the town centre are stifling business up at the retail park(s) it looks like someone has to loose out and it seems like its the retail park .. retail parks have so much to offer (especially if the existing town centre is not up to todays required standards with bad parking not near the shops that people want to shop in and narrow streets for delivery vehicles and very little pedestrianised areas) - retail parks should not be penalised just because the people who choose to set up business there instead of in the Town centre.

Retail parks have so much going for them. Loads of parking near the shops (and a lot of the time free) with disabled bays plenty of room for delivery trucks to deliver to the shops there , good pedestrian facilities (wide pavements, safe crossings, speed limits etc) and retail parks are normally very easy to get to nearby main road infrastructures.

They are a fab modern day solution to the problem of over-crowded of town centre shops or for shops that cannot be placed in towns (for whatever reason) but then these kind of plans seem to be coming in (or have been put in place years ago) to limit their usefulness if there is very strong rules what they can and cannot sell or what floor size or whatever they have to not exceed .

Its a shame. it doesnt look like the situation will ever change - well not soon anyway if it ever does. Maybe it will get to a stage one day where it appears to be having no effect whatsoever these rules they have in place and decide to lift all the restrictions on the out of town centre retail parks.

I am sorry everyone to go off topic with this post , I promise I will try to refrain commenting any more on this thread about the whole rules surrounding retail parks and try and stick to reporting on stores closing in the area .

sligoblue

Shelpy wrote: »

How can the bedrock of a concept be the concept itself? That's nonsense in the strict meaning of the word.

Actually, "in the strict meaning of the word", "debate" and "conversation" are nouns, "civil" is an adjective, neither are classed solely as "concepts". The "thing" is the conversation, being civil is the manner in which it is conducted, the manner in which it is to be conducted is one of the two main "bedrocks", the subject of the conversation being the other main one. When you have to resort to insulting the person you are debating with, it indicates that your viewpoint is not strong enough to stand on its own merits.

ccazza

Did anyone hear anything about Argos in Sligo closing? If you go to order anything in the drop down box it has Sligo-Closing soon.

sligoblue

ccazza wrote: »

Did anyone hear anything about Argos in Sligo closing? If you go to order anything in the drop down box it has Sligo-Closing soon.

I think that comes up when the store is approaching closing time. If Argos were leaving Sligo, it would be bigger news than Next.

ectoraige

sligoblue wrote: »

I think that comes up when the store is approaching closing time. If Argos were leaving Sligo, it would be bigger news than Next.

No, Sligo is the only one with that, all the other stores just have the normal name, but everywhere it used to say Sligo it now says "Sligo Closing soon" :eek:

In the Store Locator it's listed as this.

ectoraige

Maybe it's a systems error that was missed because of closure due to the weather, but if you search google for "closing soon" on the argos UK site, pretty much all the stores it finds that had "closing soon" in the title are either gone or there are news articles about them moving. It looks like most of them merged into Sainsbury stores over the last two years. It does seem strange for it to just appear on the site without any announcement, so could well be a system error.

Andy From Sligo

Oh blimey I hope they arent closing - dead handy to have the ARGOS store in Sligo

Radharc na Sleibhte

Strange.
No other store says it.

Shelpy

sligoblue wrote: »

Actually, "in the strict meaning of the word", "debate" and "conversation" are nouns, "civil" is an adjective, neither are classed solely as "concepts".

I agree they aren't classed solely as 'concepts', they are also 'words', etc. etc. I don't know why you feel the need to point that out, I never said anything it contradicts.

sligoblue wrote: »

The "thing" is the conversation, being civil is the manner in which it is conducted, the manner in which it is to be conducted is one of the two main "bedrocks", the subject of the conversation being the other main one.

I really hope that makes sense in at least your head.

sligoblue wrote: »

When you have to resort to insulting the person you are debating with, it indicates that your viewpoint is not strong enough to stand on its own merits.

Not necessarily, but I certainly agree that it often does. As I said earlier, I didn't insult anybody.

Shelpy

Andy From Sligo wrote: »

I havent read the plan there you posted yet, but i can guess its in place to protect businesses in the town centre from these 'nasty' retail parks taking business away from them - but what ever happened to competition and the best shops surviving? - this is like having something natural happen but then manufacturing the outcome so it survives (or in theory anyway)

Ever think about reading about something or do you only ever express yourself from a position of complete absence of knowledge about a topic? When you do that, are you surprised that your guess is wrong?

No, that's not why such a plan is in place. It's in place on behalf of the public to guide private/commercial interests to conduct development in a way that provides good quality of life for all people of the locality/state. Planning is not done on behalf of private individuals or corporations (or associations representing them like the Chamber of Commerce) - it's done to curtail what these entities are allowed to do, not done on behalf of them. It's not about preventing competition, it's about public policy (made on behalf of the people of the locality/state to which public policy is accountable) saying to private interests - you can do only x and y activity in place z and w in the interests of providing a good quality of life for citizens. This is the case with any development as I already said whether it is residential/commercial/town/country etc. etc. And any person/commercial entity who has ever developed anything knows precisely what those rules are BEFORE they start the development as you cannot do anything until you have received the planning permission for it.

Andy From Sligo wrote: »

by safeguarding the shops already in town centres this must mean it can be a nightmare having to fill retail units at a retail park and consequently lead to empty units

The private interests which develop any retail park know in advance precisely what activity can be carried out within the development they are making. This never changed in Sligo's case from the day planning permission was granted and the site was green fields. If there is problematic vacancy in Sligo Retail park, it's because the developer made a bad prediction about the demand for the type of space he decided to develop, he knew full well before he decided to invest any money what his development could be used for because he had to get the planning permission first. This is capitalism - you spend your money on your best prediction about whether it's a good idea or not and then you see how it turns out.

Andy From Sligo wrote: »

and other units trading up there need as much footfall of customers up there as they can, if only a certain amount of customers will go can only buy certain goods then this cannot be good for the other businesses that have decided up in the retail parks.

You don't see that businesses in Sligo town centre need the footfall too? If not, why is vacancy so high in Sligo town centre? Planning is not about deciding which businesses should succeed in competition with each other, it's about deciding where that competition can happen in order to protect the interests (quality of life, etc) of society.

Andy From Sligo wrote: »

... and these plans, by protecting the existing businesses in the town centre are stifling business up at the retail park(s) it looks like someone has to loose out and it seems like its the retail park

It is not about protecting existing businesses! There is huge vacancy in built retail space in Sligo town for new businesses to setup in! There is also, more so than any other town of equal prominence in Ireland a huge need for regeneration of existing very poorly used space in Sligo town which will provide space for new business! This is in the public interest to happen (you yourself complain about the current state in the town) and it will never, ever happen if public regulation allows it to happen somewhere else cheaper first (out of town). Public regulation has no interest in stopping development out of town in absolute terms - but it does have an interest in allowing it at the right time which is not while the town centre itself is crying out for A) Regeneration of poorly used or dilapidated space which Sligo has a HUGE block of right in its heart High vacancy of the existing retail space it already has.

Andy From Sligo wrote: »

.. retail parks have so much to offer (especially if the existing town centre is not up to todays required standards with bad parking not near the shops that people want to shop in and narrow streets for delivery vehicles and very little pedestrianised areas) - retail parks should not be penalised just because the people who choose to set up business there instead of in the Town centre

Again, you make the argument "leave the town centre to rot" and develop elsewhere. We can all agree the town centre is not what it should be - you are advocating an approach to exacerbate and entrench that exact problem for generations, I am advocating the only approach that will make fixing it possible.

Sligo retail park only came to public attention because some private company chanced their arm in trying to flagrantly flout pre-existing public regulations that were publicly explicit since before a sod was turned on the site. Yet it seems much of the Sligo public seems to have the idea that after the development happened some private interests in Sligo decided that another private interest wasn't welcome within the development for their own selfish interest. This is just untrue. What could go in the development or could not was decided and made publicly explicit by the state / local government before a sod was turned on the site.

Andy From Sligo wrote: »

They are a fab modern day solution to the problem of over-crowded of town centre shops or for shops that cannot be placed in towns (for whatever reason)

Yes they are - but as you well know, A) Sligo doesn't have an overcrowded town centre, it has a town centre with extremely high vacancy of existing developed retail units, and a 30 year long ongoing wait for a huge bank of undeveloped land right beside the main street of the town to be developed and Sligo already allows shops that cannot be placed in town centre ("bulky goods" etc) to locate at the retail park.

Andy From Sligo wrote: »

Its a shame. it doesnt look like the situation will ever change - well not soon anyway if it ever does.

It's the opposite, Sligo is very very lucky private multinationals with no interest other than their shareholders to pay didn't pull the wool over the eyes of the people in charge and consign the historic town centre of Sligo which has been the hub of the social fabric of the region for hundreds of years and many generations to guaranteed decay and dereliction for our children and their children.

T-Bird

I think the main problem with the town itself is that most of the buildings are owned for a few generations by the same family’s. They are stinking rich and complacent and very greedy by charging premium rates. They have built up their money and have invested in a number of houses and also rent those out as well.

They don’t care if a shop comes and goes or if their premises is empty for a while, the money has been made.

A lot of them are involved in politics or have close ties to them so can do a bit of arm bending etc. In time they may suffer. But for now they are sitting pretty.

Andy From Sligo

T-Bird wrote: »

I think the main problem with the town itself is that most of the buildings are owned for a few generations by the same family’s. They are stinking rich and complacent and very greedy by charging premium rates. They have built up their money and have invested in a number of houses and also rent those out as well.

They don’t care if a shop comes and goes or if their premises is empty for a while, the money has been made.

A lot of them are involved in politics or have close ties to them so can do a bit of arm bending etc. In time they may suffer. But for now they are sitting pretty.

yes, i am more inclined to stick to this belief too - I dont think it has much to do with whether the town centre will decline/decay with modernisation and retail parks/ out of town centre shopping I think its these families who own business premises who are just looking out for their own interests and this is why they object/dont want many other (outside) business moving in or setting up in the retail parks. And some if not all of these owners are/have been in the COC for years (and most probably have a lot of pull with SCC as well) and as you say involved in politics too.

Its a shame the cycle cannot be broken and just things/business move on with the times in the town and just give customers in Sligo the kind of shops they want without restrictions, they've not got the shopping public interests in mind if all they are doing is protecting their own shops and couldnt care less if their units were empty or not.

Mint Sauce

Not that I am wishing for places to close, but think I will return to this thread when place does.

BenBulben18

T-Bird wrote: »

I think the main problem with the town itself is that most of the buildings are owned for a few generations by the same family’s. They are stinking rich and complacent and very greedy by charging premium rates. They have built up their money and have invested in a number of houses and also rent those out as well.

They don’t care if a shop comes and goes or if their premises is empty for a while, the money has been made.

A lot of them are involved in politics or have close ties to them so can do a bit of arm bending etc. In time they may suffer. But for now they are sitting pretty.

This is undoubtedly an issue in the town of Sligo.
But the root is surely also back to population and the fact that the population of Sligo town is not growing, and surely one of the absolutely necessary solutions to that is large private sector companies coming in? To be quite honest, the large number of retail units that keep opening up in Sligo town and then closing, that's in part due to those units not doing the business.... and we're back to supply/demand etc.

Also, could Sligo town centre not be regenerated with residential apartments? For example, there's a huge shortage of one-bed apartments in Sligo right now. Maybe not a solution, but I question whether retail is the solution to anything, since lots just pop up to Liffey Valley or shop online. The question is whether the demand is really there.

In general though, for Sligo to have a sustainable future, all stakeholders need to get together and do something sharpish. I just see the town puttering to halt...

muffler

Mod note/ @ Shelpy (and a couple of others) please do not derail the thread any further. Its already a mess with discussion on retail planning and even grammar lessons. Start another thread on planning matters if you wish.

BenBulben18

Sorry! (I've been trying to get a thread going on this general stuff, but it doesn't seem to attract as much traffic as this thread, but sorry to go off topic)