What would YOU do to Greystones?

woodsy2

Hi Folks!

Just out of interest/fun, on the imaginary basis that this forum represented the town council, what would most people on here like to see changed, or created, in the town? What new shop, industry, facility, activity, community scheme or cosmetic works would you implement to better the place we call home? (maybe we'll forget about the harbour for this one, sure we have a whole thread on that already ).

sanbrafyffe

release more fish so we could fish its beach more:D:D:D:D:D:D:D

Mr.Crinklewood

Paint them a brighter colour.

Pablo Sanchez

Bring the Luas to the town and or increase the number of Dart's

MonkeyMe

Get the traffic out of the village and turn the main street into a pedestrian zone... and give the park a facelift, plant some trees, flowers, etc...

loobylou

Make the buses link with the DART, last night the 184 left the station at 19.24,
the 84X left at 19.26 and the DART arrives in at 19.27.
Edit, lost track of days, it was Wed rather than last night but happens most days anyway.

Charlie-Bravo

Have to agree with MonkeyMe about the park...it's a bit pathetic TBH...uneven surfaces, grass is always too long, footpaths are in sh**e, benches are well dated and need replacing...the only thing that looks good is the water feature and the seating which is actually beside the park!

It would be a fantastic space for families to hang around, play, have a picnic, etc...I reckon a Merrion Square-esque park would be great.

Now before all of that, the most basic thing they could do is bother to put a baby swing in the playground up at Charlesland Sports & Recreation Centre. That play ground is limited to over 3yr olds.:mad:

dudmis

I'd love to see a really good playground in Greystones aswell - one that caters for all ages and that could be a really nice rec area for families.I think its mad that kids have to queue up to use the swings etc in park by the park n ride.

Rasmus

Pimp the park, build a playground like the one in Cabinteely opposite shoreline, less boutiques, more independent food shops and specialty stores including a bigger bookshop and a toyshop, another secondary school, an adult education centre and learning centre for children - maybe in the form of a museum like a science centre. (This could go in the Woodlands building).
Potted Flowers all along the main street. Make the old post a tourist/community info centre.
Cheaper alternatives to theatre youth activities.
More darts, and they would have to match the bus schedule. An additional regular shuttle from Kilcoole to Bray. Failing that, a monorail from Charlesland to the park and ride.
Employ folks to clean all the dog poo from the beach, or impose wardens to fine people for letting their dogs do it. Benches and bins along the beach. Telescopes.
Nature trails around Burnaby woods/golf club area through to Charlesland.
There's more of course!

dr ro

Rasmus wrote: »

Pimp the park, build a playground like the one in Cabinteely opposite shoreline, less boutiques, more independent food shops and specialty stores including a bigger bookshop and a toyshop, another secondary school, an adult education centre and learning centre for children - maybe in the form of a museum like a science centre. (This could go in the Woodlands building).
Potted Flowers all along the main street. Make the old post a tourist/community info centre.
Cheaper alternatives to theatre youth activities.
More darts, and they would have to match the bus schedule. An additional regular shuttle from Kilcoole to Bray. Failing that, a monorail from Charlesland to the park and ride.
Employ folks to clean all the dog poo from the beach, or impose wardens to fine people for letting their dogs do it. Benches and bins along the beach. Telescopes.
Nature trails around Burnaby woods/golf club area through to Charlesland.
There's more of course!

more what? Taxes?

conlof

Rasmus wrote: »

Pimp the park, build a playground like the one in Cabinteely opposite shoreline, less boutiques, more independent food shops and specialty stores including a bigger bookshop and a toyshop, another secondary school, an adult education centre and learning centre for children - maybe in the form of a museum like a science centre. (This could go in the Woodlands building).
Potted Flowers all along the main street. Make the old post a tourist/community info centre.
Cheaper alternatives to theatre youth activities.
More darts, and they would have to match the bus schedule. An additional regular shuttle from Kilcoole to Bray. Failing that, a monorail from Charlesland to the park and ride.
Employ folks to clean all the dog poo from the beach, or impose wardens to fine people for letting their dogs do it. Benches and bins along the beach. Telescopes.
Nature trails around Burnaby woods/golf club area through to Charlesland.
There's more of course!

Great ideas

Rasmus

dr ro wrote: »

more what? Taxes?

Take a look at the first part of the OP's question.

Jammyc

With regard to the more darts suggestion, I dont think it's possible. It takes 10-12 minutes to get to Bray and then 10-12 back, so max is to have one every 25 minutes-ish because of the single line, which isnt a whole lot more than the every 30 minutes we see on weekdays.

Weekend dart times are pretty crap though, they could be improved.

Selandia

A properly run youth cafe, with coffee/juice bar, music, computers, meeting space, chill zone , etc - costs subsidised by public funding. Discreet supervision by adults but plenty of input by teenagers as to how it would be run!

Cheeky Chops

Dog poo .. pick it up people or do not have a dog!

Nice thread.

sagat2

First up bury the power lines in the middle of town, this happened in a lot of Irish towns during the boom years but Greystones still has cables everywhere.

Next fence in and landscape the park, like the peoples park in Dún Laoghaire, have it open and patrolled from Dawn to Dusk, I'd also build a band stand and name it Ronnie Drew park with ticketed live music events in the summer to raise cash for maintenance.

Now for a more ambitious plan: Bury the train tracks south of the station and down the South Beach and develop the seafront from the old garage south with a boardwalk and mixture of apartments, retail and dining opening up a secondary station down by where the river meets the sea as a major extension of the village. Obviously major coastal defences would need to be built to protect the new seafront.

Another improvement would be to level St. Davids and build an appropriate replacement with modern facilities and playing fields perhaps on the site across the Charlesland road from Shoreline, if not I'd build a small leafy college on that site maybe an art or foreign language school. If rebuilding on the Davids site ensure the design is in keeping with the aesthetics of the town.

Restore the LaTouche to it's former glory perhaps adapting it into a school, market or clinic, even apartments would be better than a vacant shell.

A larger police force patrolling the town and bouncing undesirables.

Make the main street a car free zone on weekends in Summer.

eigrod

sagat2 wrote: »

Restore the LaTouche to it's former glory perhaps adapting it into a school, market or clinic, even apartments would be better than a vacant shell.

It's ironic that hotels shot up all over the country during the boom, yet in our reasonably populated town, ours shut down and we are left with no hotel.

Also, would be nice if Church Road was properly re-surfaced (the botch job they did recently, particularly on the speed bumps between Fenton Fires and the Church was just ridiculous).

The Real B-man

More Pubs and a Decent Nightclub

Imhof Tank

Bring back the Summer Arts Festival

Huntthe

I think fixing the problem areas would be my priority. People have been looking at eyesores for so long they don't see them anymore.

The La Touche Hotel.
The Harbour.
The Garage opposite Bradys Hardware.
The Park
Dooleys Auctioneers in the Sports belt.
St Davids secondary School.

All eyesores.

Welsh Wizard

1. Sort the roads out...
The surface of the moon must be smoother than ours local roads.

2. Nice new hotel...
Not many many hotels in Greystones compared to Bray.

3. Sort out all the dog muckers...!
Fine them or shoot them with a ball of their own dogs mess.

4. Open the pub in Charlesland...
For the love of god, its been sitting there how many years...?

Is this too much to ask... I guess so...

Fiachra2

Huntthe wrote: »

I think fixing the problem areas would be my priority. People have been looking at eyesores for so long they don't see them anymore.

The La Touche Hotel.
The Harbour.
The Garage opposite Bradys Hardware.
The Park
Dooleys Auctioneers in the Sports belt.
St Davids secondary School.

All eyesores.

Good point.
The one thing the people of Greystones could do (and indeed the town council could do) is to make a plan of what they would like the town to look like. The plan would involve listing out the "things" we want to keep (eg La touch hotel, park, etc) and the areas of the town that give it its character and to agree that they must be protected. The plan would also identify the eyesores that need urgent attention. It would also identfy the areas that need enhancing as well as new features we would ideally like to add to the town. This would give a framework plan against which new developments of proposals could be assesed and give developers an idea of the kind of development that would be well received.
A number of years ago two of us who were then on the town council tried to prepare such a plan using public fora to formulate it. Believe it or not we met with vigourous opposition from the town council and Wicklow county Copuncillors who were unhappy with anything that interfered with the traditional developer-lead approach to town planning!

cavemeister

New roads, speed ramps that don't sink lower than the road and the big one..... sort out the sand on the beach.... I have seen grass growing on it. It needs to be combed by a tractor.

Alun

cavemeister wrote: »

... sort out the sand on the beach.... I have seen grass growing on it. It needs to be combed by a tractor.

If it's the area I'm thinking of, it's not normal grass like you have on your lawn, but a specific variety of sea grass called Marram Grass that naturally occurs in such situations and if given the right conditions is an aid to embryonic dune formation. It has special roots that grow underneath the sand and then pop up further on, binding the sand together.

So no, it doesn't need to be combed by anything, certainly not a tractor. It might even be protected, I don't know.

shaviebeby

Need activity centres for kids to play and participate in. Big sports dome-activity centre. Keep people active and not confined to their houses, especially in the winter months. Not many activities to do in winter once the evenings get shorter!!!

amy1plus2

Charlesland Pub - Please - Nuff said

Mullie

Build a walking & biking trail along the coast as a continuation to the cliff walk. We're sitting on a coastline with massive tourism potential and its only partially utilised.
Tourism Ireland are developing cycling trails at the moment and it seems like Greystones is perfect for this.
Something along these lines:
http://www.discoverireland.ie/Great-Western-Greenway.aspx

Blandpebbles

The following would be enacted -

1. Community

Make it mandatory for people who live in Greystones for more than a year to actually participate in the community.

Everyone would be required to do at least one week a quarter doing community work. Painting, building etc... The Mellon foundation builds houses in a week in South Africa and Greystones struggles to take hoardings down, seed some grass and put some benches up to complete the harbour.

Funding would be provided by a Greystones residence fee of 50 euro per person per household annually. 2006 Census says approx 15000 in Greystones = 750,000.

Payment of this fee would be waived for those who do more than one weekend a quarter of community work.

2. Law and Crime

The Greystones Gardai would be required to provide crime and resolution stats on a monthly basis with pay directly related to results.

We must have SLAs.

3. Governance

Councillors would not be paid for their roles but perform the role on a focussed 2-3 hours per week on a voluntary basis as they love the town so much and keep telling us.

4. The Town

Church Road to be pedestrianised from Fenton Fires to the Railway Station. Reducing traffic congestion and enable shops and cafes to expand outwards to include stalls and open air cafes on the throughfare.

The Meridian centre can be adapted as a cover market which can operatre throughout the year, with the square area being populated during summer months. Renamed to Greystones Town Square.

5. Schools

All schools to be run by community trusts and religious influence to be removed.

All students both primary and secondary to have attend community responsibility classes.

6. Blacklion Petrol Station to have a cap set on petrol prices that must match other stations.

Macy0161

Harbour and the La Touche are the obvious big ticket items.

Smaller ticket items - the bloody dog crap everywhere - the park, the beach, the walkway above the beach, beside the playground etc. So enforcement of that would be a big thing.

Annasopra

I know that I'm not actually responding with my own list but just had to respond

Blandpebbles wrote: »

The following would be enacted -

Everyone would be required to do at least one week a quarter doing community work. Painting, building etc... The Mellon foundation builds houses in a week in South Africa and Greystones struggles to take hoardings down, seed some grass and put some benches up to complete the harbour.

Sure; great idea but just not feasible - a lot of disabled people and older people would not be physically able to do this, other people just don't have time due to life commitments such as work, parenting etc etc

Blandpebbles wrote: »

We must have SLAs.

I don't know what SLA means - I would ban management gobbledegook phrases

Jammyc

Johnnymcg wrote: »

Sure; great idea but just not feasible - a lot of disabled people and older people would not be physically able to do this, other people just don't have time due to life commitments such as work, parenting etc etc

That and it sounds fairly communist.