Spars destroying the city?

lightening

WindSock wrote: »

Where is this Biggest Farmers Market in Dublin?

According to RTE it's in Howth, the one with the pig on a spit.

WindSock

It is

Jaysus, it's not even that big. I'd have thought it would have been in Smithfield or somewhere. The Howth one is mainly overpriced junk for tourists.

lightening

WindSock wrote: »

Jaysus, it's not even that big

I know! Don't be too quick to knock it! Did you try the chowder? It's lovely, so is the pig on a spit. Have you laugh at "man of aran fudge" though.:D

BraziliaNZ

WindSock wrote: »

It is

Jaysus, it's not even that big. I'd have thought it would have been in Smithfield or somewhere. The Howth one is mainly overpriced junk for tourists.

it's nice to walk around looking at, but i think they wanted 6 euro for a tub of curry sauce ffs

dRNk SAnTA

The thing about Dublin is that there are already lots of rules in place regarding shop fronts. Remember places like O'Connell St and Grafton Street have special "Architectural Conservation Area" status, the only problem here is that the council is not enforcing it at all.

If we want Dublin to be a more beautiful city (I do), there needs to be a zero-tolerance approach taken. What is the point in creating masterplans and regenerating areas when we eventually let everything fall to pieces by not maintaining basic standards.

Look at the James Joyce Bridge where lightbulbs are never replaced, or O'Connell Bridge where a pillar was missing and covered with a plastic yoke for months and months. These are literally the most central, most touristy parts of the city!

I only got back from Madrid yesterday and the amount of public workers they have cleaning streets and gardening is unreal. With an old fashioned brush as well, they don't need sweeper tanks! They also wash the streets with water, even though it had been raining a day previously.

How can other cities afford these facilities but not Dublin? What exactly are we getting instead?

Our low standards also lead to our ugly advertising hoardings, our useless street signage, the proliferation of metal sign-poles and other visual clutter, poor pavement maintenence, or filling in holes with tarmac, etc.

I just don't understand why we have so many people working in those big council offices but they can't deal with these basic things that citizens in other cities take for granted...?

dslnnd

An Taisce accuses council of 'reckless neglect' of city centre

OLIVIA KELLY

THE HISTORIC core of Dublin city is becoming a blackspot of “cheap garish signage” and “lower-order shops” because of Dublin City Council’s failure to enforce planning laws, An Taisce has said.

The national heritage trust has lodged a complaint with the council which it said was guilty of “reckless neglect” of the city centre by not taking action against unauthorised shopfronts and signage, and in some cases allowing businesses to operate for years without planning permission.

Businesses had erected without permission signs which clearly did not comply with city council regulations for shop fronts, yet the council had not ordered their removal, An Taisce said. However, in a number of cases the council had refused permission for signs but businesses had not removed them, yet they were not being pursued by the council.

Poor quality shopfronts was an increasing problem city-wide, An Taisce said, but was most pronounced in the historic core on streets of major civic and architectural importance.

“The main thoroughfares immediately south of the Liffey – Westmoreland Street, Dame Street, Parliament Street and the South Quays – are becoming a blackspot of lower-order shops and fast-food restaurants with cheap, garish shopfronts and signage,” the submission said.

The recession was creating a big increase in closure and vacancy rates, and a proliferation of discount shops. In this environment, increased vigilance was needed to uphold standards and prevent major deterioration in streets, An Taisce said. “Instead, there seems to be no planning enforcement in operation at all.”

Westmoreland Street had seen the most severe deterioration of any city-centre street in recent years, in the wake of the closure of Bewley’s in 2004, it said. The west side of the street had “descended into an appalling collection of low-order shops competing with each other for signage clutter, while there were significant stretches of dead frontage on the east side”.

It highlighted a number of premises on Westmoreland Street breaking shopfront regulations including Supermac’s, which had been refused permission for certain signage and alterations made to the shopfront in October 2009 and Charlie’s 3 Chinese takeaway, which had been refused permission for its shopfront and to operate as a fast-food restaurant in 2005, yet remained open.

Managing director of Supermac’s, Pat McDonagh, said the signs referred to by An Taisce were temporary and Supermac’s was in the process of applying to the council for permanent projecting signs needed to attract customers. “An Taisce musn’t know there’s a recession – without these signs, which are less garish and more delicate than the flat signs, people could walk by and not even know we’re there.”

The owner of Charlie’s 3 was not available yesterday.

Among the premises An Taisce highlighted on Dame Street was a Spar shop which had in September 2009 been refused permission to retain certain aspects of its front window design but which remained in place. In a statement the company said it took its responsibilities in relation to planning very seriously and worked closely with the authorities in relation to its stores.

Parliament Street had started to “go downhill” in the last 18 months, An Taisce said. One fastfood restaurant, Mezza, had been ordered by the council to remove its illuminated signs by August 2010 but had not done so. Owner Eileen Monaghan yesterday said she had received no such notification from the council and was unaware of any complaints.

The council said the submission from An Taisce would be investigated and “where appropriate enforcement action will be taken”.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2011/0208/1224289258966.html

The An Taisce shopfront submission is available here - http://www.antaisce.org/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=d%2fjwg47LBd0%3d&tabid=36&language=en-US

BraziliaNZ

The city centre is very depressing at the moment, at least on the northside. All you can eat Chinese buffets, Spar shops, O'Carrolls gift shops...
I guess it's only going to get worse with the recession but I work in North Inner City and it's not a nice place to be these days.

Coriolanus

BraziliaNZ wrote: »

I guess it's only going to get worse with the recession but I work in North Inner City and it's not a nice place to be these days.

Likewise. BID is helping a little, but there's only so much flowers and street sweeping can do.

dslnnd

BraziliaNZ, yes true, a lot of the inner city, especially the north, has an increasingly down-at-heel feeling at the moment with the recession. The Taisce report just took those four streets immediately south of the Liffey as a microcosm of what's happening overall, and also because they are very visible streets to tourists (ie. next to Trinity College, Temple Bar & Dublin Castle).

Jesus Wept

Spar is a franchise so there is no reason it can't be locally owned and run.

temply

BraziliaNZ wrote: »

The city centre is very depressing at the moment, at least on the northside. All you can eat Chinese buffets, Spar shops, O'Carrolls gift shops...
I guess it's only going to get worse with the recession but I work in North Inner City and it's not a nice place to be these days.

Its dreadful - all along Abbey Street & on O'Connell Street - full of junkies, shockingly more than there has been in the past... Someone told me that reason is because of the Luas

Desperate - can't imagine what tourists who venture down that way make of it at all

Faith+1

Well at least the city is one Spar down. The one on dorset street(on the corner) is now a Larkins. Still looks the same though :rolleyes:

Frei

Camden Street is one of the loveliest parts of Dublin, yes there is a Spar, Centra, Fresh and a Tesco Express but they seem to absorb fairly well into the cornucopia. Plenty of lovely shops like John Gunns, charity shops, nice cafes ..pity about Morrisseys Butchers going though.

I don't go into O'Connell if I can avoid it. Horrible. You have the lovely architectural buildings like the GPO etc but other than that the main street is devoid of character.

Jesus Wept

Can't say I've ever looked at Camden street in that light.

fly_agaric

dRNk SAnTA wrote: »

The thing about Dublin is that there are already lots of rules in place regarding shop fronts. Remember places like O'Connell St and Grafton Street have special "Architectural Conservation Area" status, the only problem here is that the council is not enforcing it at all.

DCC is unlikely to bite the hand that feeds it IMO.

I wonder, if DCC did go after some of these businesses, would we have the spectacle of the central government telling it to lay off these wonderful job-creators and rate-payers?

Japer

The city has bigger planning / architectural problems than Spar shops.

SantryRed

What absolute tools on that other site. Fair enough if they don't like it. But to say that their sales would get even better if they reduced the signs to a miniscule level, is absolutely ridiculous.

dslnnd

Dublin City Council are to discuss the shopfronts issue at their Strategic Policy Committee meeting:

HOW GARISH SHOP SIGNS MAKE CITY LOOK UGLY

Evening Herald, Thursday March 03 2011

DUBLIN'S historic city centre has been allowed to degenerate with "garish" shopfronts dominating streets, it is claimed.

Dublin City Council is being asked to respond to criticism of its policy with Westmoreland Street, Dame Street and the South Quays said to be the worst hit in a report by An Taisce.

Labour's Dermot Lacey raised the issue at a meeting of the council's economic and planning strategic policy committee (SPC) this week.

Cllr Lacey told the Herald the streets mentioned in the An Taisce document had "degenerated into looking awful".

Urgency

He said the council agreed to compile a report on the controversy after it was accused of "reckless neglect" of the city centre by not taking action against unauthorised shopfronts.

An Taisce noted the council was not using "all powers at its disposal" to ensure planning permissions were complied with.

"Further deterioration of this prime city-core area must be arrested as a matter of urgency. There are major implications for the economy and the status of Dublin as a European capital of letting it continue to slide downwards," the heritage body warns. It recommended the council "must appropriately staff and resource" its planning enforcement section in order to address the problems.

There must be a "real possibility of court injunctions for offenders", An Taisce said.

Another recommendation was that the local authority must implement an active policing role "so that harmful changes can be tackled as they happen and don't become established".

It added: "The main thoroughfares immediately south of the Liffey -- Westmoreland Street, Dame Street, Parliament Street and the south Quays -- are becoming a black spot of lower-order shops and fast-food restaurants with cheap, garish shopfronts and signage."

While the problem is city-wide, it is "most pronounced" in these streets because of their "major civic and architectural importance". An Taisce said the areas under consideration are "right on the tourism nodes of Trinity College, Dublin Castle and Temple Bar".

- Cormac Murphy

http://www.herald.ie/national-news/city-news/how-garish-shop-signs-make-city-look-ugly-2564140.html

OliveK

Hi,

On a slightly related subject of new versus old, I am doing an article on the olden days in Dublin (around 100 years ago)

and the prominent merchants/shops of that time,

the oldest or longest-lasting department stores, grocers, drapers, bookstores, jewellers, eateries, barbers, hairdressers, main factories/manufacturing etc

I am curious (as a non-Dub) as to commercial life in our capital, before all the Centras and Marks & Spencers and HMVs etc - what shops/merchants were typical of Dublin?

Thanks for any insights, names of books, other reference points etc,
OliveK

mikemac

If you want info Olive google archiseek Ireland

OliveK

Thanks for that tip, feelingstressed!:)

dslnnd

Hi Olive,

There's a lady called Rose Doyle who is a font of knowledge on the subject. She had a book in 2004 on the traditional traders & shopkeepers of Dublin, which also ran as a series in the Irish Times - http://www.rosedoyle.com/trade.html
That's an old site so if contacts don't work pummel her for a few minutes on google and there might be something more recent.

OliveK

Hi dslnnd,

Brilliant! Thanks for that

Olive:)

Blisterman

I completely agree that tacky signs ruin the look of a street. What's the point of spending all the money on conservation and preservation, to maintain the old character of the streets, when you allow chain stores to stick up big massive corporate branding, with no regard for its surroundings.

dubbie82

I noticed two new deli posters at the Gala store on O'Connell Street. They are placed on either side of the entrance and seem to overlap to the next property. I didn't get a good look yet so I could be wrong on this one.
It is a bit of an eyesore but not as bad as the fake front at the emporium.

Is there actually something happening at the Building site next to AIB on O'Connell Street? It seems to be awful quiet there.

Amalgam

On some streets every second storefront is a convenience shop. I object as much to the alcohol selling licenses which seem to have been distributed willy nilly.

This from a Council that pledged to do everything in their power to prevent A** S****** from opening on O'Connell Street, with a nod towards possibly enforcing signage regulations.

Piss artist hypocrites.

DWCommuter

Interestingly we couldn't have cafe bars serving alcohol in a comfortable environment but its fair game for tacky convenience stores dotted all over the citys streets.:rolleyes:

DWCommuter

Amalgam wrote: »

On some streets every second storefront is a convenience shop. I object as much to the alcohol selling licenses which seem to have been distributed willy nilly.

This from a Council that pledged to do everything in their power to prevent A** S****** from opening on O'Connell Street, with a nod towards possibly enforcing signage regulations.

Piss artist hypocrites.

Ah that would be the residue from De Valeras Ireland. Still a bit of it around mind you.:D