infrastructure in Waterford

fuzzy dunlop

dayshah wrote: »

You mean communication links, like roads?.

Yes. We are the centre of the region in every tangible way and being the primary retail centre in the region is crucial to for good planning and regional development.

dayshah wrote: »

I suppose you want people to cycle to the Newgate Centre (you'd be in line with Brendan McCann there), or maybe carry a heavy bag of shopping back down to the bus on the quay. (Public transport is part of the solution, but not enough.).

Again you're only showing your ignorence of the project here and the concept of town planning. People cycling to the centre? Why not? It's hardly impossible.There is probably 40,000 people living within a short cycling distance. And this hyperbole about heavy shopping bags is typical from the objectors. I heard WCTU down at the hearing say it was not feasible because people would not be able to carry flatpack furniture up through town. All of a sudden everone is an invalid who can't carry a bag of shopping or else on some intense hedonistic shopping splurge. The project is aimed at comparison retail i.e clothing stores. You go into town buy a pair of shoes you've spent 100 Euros.Add a Jeans and a decent shirt you've spent 300 Euros.You still have one bag of light shopping. You can use the bus, a bicycle or here is a radical idea walk home if you are living in the city.No car necessary or trip to McDonagh junction,Mahon Point or Dundrum town centre.

dayshah wrote: »

The Newgate centre proposed about 600 new car spaces, but removes the New St car park, meaning far less car spaces. Given the more intense competition for customers from South Kilkenny KRM have to up their game.
.

Hardly far less.And the solution is not necessarily more parking.If the quality on offer is good enough people will use public transport. It is hard for KRM to up their game with people like you calling for more modest proposals.

dayshah wrote: »

An obvious solution would be to scrap the whole hotel and leisure centre, and put in more parking spaces. This would mean that people driving there would relax in the knowledge that they won't have to spend half an hour looking for a space. This could take some customers from Kilkenny. But with the current proposal it would be hell for someone from Thomastown to find a parking space..

How would someone from Thomastown find it more difficult than anyone else.This is ridiculous.Park their car at Thomastown train station and get the train to Waterford.You do realise that people are capable of getting buses and trains from these areas to do their business in Waterford and have being doing so for decades.

dayshah wrote: »

Parking is a piece of infrastructure that retail is dependent on..

Yes but that doesn't mean we need more parking

dayshah wrote: »

Its a shame that the application of some common sense is dismissed as a contrarian view.

It isn't common sense it is over simplistic arguement for the sake of arguement.

foxcoverteddy

typical of a resident of Kilkenny but where is this Newgate Centre, such a lot being said about parking and cycles and public transport, I suppose Waterford has what Kilkenny hasn't a decent transport set up, you can't carry heavy shopping in Kilkenny there is no Bus running through the High st, the station is a deadly walk up hill, cycling facilities, some joke, lucky Waterford, by the way you have even a decent road layout.

merlante

foxcoverteddy wrote: »

typical of a resident of Kilkenny but where is this Newgate Centre, such a lot being said about parking and cycles and public transport, I suppose Waterford has what Kilkenny hasn't a decent transport set up, you can't carry heavy shopping in Kilkenny there is no Bus running through the High st, the station is a deadly walk up hill, cycling facilities, some joke, lucky Waterford, by the way you have even a decent road layout.

Kilkenny needs to pedestrianise more. Too congested along the narrow streets. The place would be terrific then. And yeah, a bus going from one end of the town to the other wouldn't go astray if there isn't one.

foxcoverteddy

Sorry mate the shop keepers complained it took trade away, we then went for a one way system which was so badly planned by the council, the shop keepers still complained, the place was brilliant for a short while no traffic fumes, we could have had parisian type cafes on the high st, oh dear no, and we haven't got a bus, we do have two trains for tourists, lucky Waterford, and now we have only one toy shop, what is the world coming to, I guess with the comedians in power life is a joke

dayshah

merlante wrote: »

So to get this straight. Are you arguing that Waterford cannot support a shopping centre of the scale of Donagh in Kilkenny, or maybe a bit bigger?

At the moment McDonagh needn't compete with Newgate because Newgate doesn't exist. But if Newgate is built it will have to compete with what already exists. McDonagh could become unviable (I don't know how viable it currently is).

fuzzy dunlop wrote: »

How would someone from Thomastown find it more difficult than anyone else.This is ridiculous.Park their car at Thomastown train station and get the train to Waterford.You do realise that people are capable of getting buses and trains from these areas to do their business in Waterford and have being doing so for decades.

I chose Thomastown as its halfway between Kilkenny and Waterford, precisely the sort of people that Newgate would have to win over. Newgate requires more people to come to Waterford (not the same numbers we've been getting 'for decades'), which requires more car spaces.

McDonagh junction is far more convenient for rail passengers than Newgate. Newgate is more car dependent.

Bards

what an insane idea, wanting to build a shopping centre in the commercial centre of a City - next they'll want to build trains that will go on tracks:rolleyes:

wellboytoo

dayshah wrote: »

McDonagh junction is far more convenient for rail passengers than Newgate. Newgate is more car dependent.

Mc Donagh junction is a souless cold place reminicent of any city in Britain or Ireland, Killkenny deserved better and so do we.

merlante

foxcoverteddy wrote: »

Sorry mate the shop keepers complained it took trade away, we then went for a one way system which was so badly planned by the council, the shop keepers still complained, the place was brilliant for a short while no traffic fumes, we could have had parisian type cafes on the high st, oh dear no, and we haven't got a bus, we do have two trains for tourists, lucky Waterford, and now we have only one toy shop, what is the world coming to, I guess with the comedians in power life is a joke

Yeah, Waterford had the same problems with shop keepers. People apparently want to pull up right outside a shop in their car... Still, eventually sense won out, and, in Waterford's case, cafe's and markets started to flourish in JR square. Truth be told, something had to give anyway, because those streets couldn't take the traffic volumes so you either decide to fight a losing battle for the outskirts of the city for the 'drive-in' sort of business, or you try to transform the type of business that is done. In Kilkenny, this might not be a big problem because of the amount of pubs and cafes on the main streets. It *should* be a boon for business straight away, especially with the tourism -- which is only starting to come good in Waterford now.

There was a fightback by businesses and taxi drivers in Waterford to reclaim broad street at the start of the recession, but they've quietened down now.

merlante

dayshah wrote: »

At the moment McDonagh needn't compete with Newgate because Newgate doesn't exist. But if Newgate is built it will have to compete with what already exists. McDonagh could become unviable (I don't know how viable it currently is).

So you're saying that because one centre got built, the other one shouldn't get built. God forbid there would be competition in a market. You'd have been comfortable in the USSR. They wouldn't have done anything silly like that.

dayshah wrote: »

I chose Thomastown as its halfway between Kilkenny and Waterford, precisely the sort of people that Newgate would have to win over. Newgate requires more people to come to Waterford (not the same numbers we've been getting 'for decades'), which requires more car spaces.

McDonagh junction is far more convenient for rail passengers than Newgate. Newgate is more car dependent.

Rubbish, there is a high local population that would keep the centre ticking over, people in Thomastown are part of the picture but they only need to come down every few weeks to play their part in the success of a shopping centre in Waterford. Maybe given the extra choice, people in Thomastown might actually spend more, which is kind of the way capitalist economies grow. It's not a zero sum game.

Not if those rail passengers are coming from Waterford it's not. (And who'd bother coming to Kilkenny from Dublin to shop?)

fuzzy dunlop

dayshah wrote: »

At the moment McDonagh needn't compete with Newgate because Newgate doesn't exist. But if Newgate is built it will have to compete with what already exists. McDonagh could become unviable (I don't know how viable it currently is)..

So what this would be a good thing from our poibt of view. It still makes Newgate a necessity from a regional point of view.

dayshah wrote: »

I chose Thomastown as its halfway between Kilkenny and Waterford, precisely the sort of people that Newgate would have to win over. Newgate requires more people to come to Waterford (not the same numbers we've been getting 'for decades'), which requires more car spaces.

No Newgate is needed to ensure we retain our primacy at least.If Kilkenny pulls ahead it will inevitably affect Waterford and pull in the wrong direction. Either way your point supports the case for Newgate and it isn't more car dependent.

dayshah wrote: »

McDonagh junction is far more convenient for rail passengers than Newgate. Newgate is more car dependent.

How so? Newgate would have a plethora of Bus Links and is in walking distance to the train station.Newgate is far better served by Public Transport than McDonagh Junction.

dayshah

wellboytoo wrote: »

Mc Donagh junction is a souless cold place reminicent of any city in Britain or Ireland, Killkenny deserved better and so do we.

That's just the thing I'm afraid we would loose. I much prefer walking along Michael St than going into City Square. We need shopping centres, but they will always be sterile compared to something like Michael Street where you can here the banter, get cakes from Greers and so on.

I've no problem with a shopping centre going in, but I have a problem in destroying what we have.

sunnysoutheast

dayshah wrote: »

That's just the thing I'm afraid we would loose. I much prefer walking along Michael St than going into City Square. We need shopping centres, but they will always be sterile compared to something like Michael Street where you can here the banter, get cakes from Greers and so on.

I've no problem with a shopping centre going in, but I have a problem in destroying what we have.

That whole area is pretty much dying a slow death anyway. The increased footfall from the new centre would have meant that it would make financial sense to invest in the remaining shops along Michael St. rather than allowing them to slowly degrade. As it is, with the current uncertainty around the Newgate centre and of course the inevitable costs and delays due to our local self-appointed planning "guardian", the area is in stasis - News&Star, Old Stand, etc. etc.

If the shopping centre had gone ahead we could have had a Michael St. with cafe bars, delis, specialist food shops, who knows, in it. Yet another of this City's missed opportunities.

SSE

fricatus

dayshah wrote: »

That's just the thing I'm afraid we would loose. I much prefer walking along Michael St than going into City Square. We need shopping centres, but they will always be sterile compared to something like Michael Street where you can here the banter, get cakes from Greers and so on.

And what do you do when it rains, eh?

dayshah wrote: »

I've no problem with a shopping centre going in...

Hmmm... coulda fooled me...

dayshah wrote: »

...but I have a problem in destroying what we have.

I'm sympathetic to this point of view all right, but what we have on that site right now is a load of derelict buildings and a very ugly car park. Most of the facade of Michael St would be retained, and the footfall generated by a new shopping centre in that area would mean that the existing shops have a greater opportunity to sell their wares (as more people are passing by).

Sure, some will go by the wayside, but the good ones will capitalise on the increased opportunities.

Ultimately "what we have" on Michael St can only survive if it's generating a living for the owners. If it's not, it will close (as has sadly happened to too many shops down around there, including my favourite, Kilo's). Having a shopping centre that draws people in from all around the region could possibly have saved that shop, and others - I don't know, and I suspect you don't either.

merlante

dayshah wrote: »

That's just the thing I'm afraid we would loose. I much prefer walking along Michael St than going into City Square. We need shopping centres, but they will always be sterile compared to something like Michael Street where you can here the banter, get cakes from Greers and so on.

I've no problem with a shopping centre going in, but I have a problem in destroying what we have.

You see this is the crux of the issue right here. I completely agree with you, streets are a hundred times better than shopping centres. I would rebuild a street or two in Waterford to provide the same capacity at street level as Newgate were proposing in a shopping centre. But there's a problem with that. The *same* people who are against shopping centres are the people who will come out and object against each and every street level modification you propose -- and to do it properly, you'd have to rebuild a street in sections and ultimately do the whole street.

The sort of planning I am suggesting is mickey mouse compared with the work of the wide streets commission in the 18th century, who I believe planned the Mall. Why does nobody suggest doing this now? Serial objectors. The sad, sad tragedy of all this is that serial objectors are foisting shopping centres on us because shopping centres, difficult though they are to get through the planning process, are a million times easier than street re-design.

Now if people are going to make the argument that we should build neither shopping centres nor touch a brick of an existing building on Michael st. or any other street, then that's where I would respectfully suggest that they might be happier in a "medieval city" like Kilkenny, because cities have to grow and develop, and if they are not allowed to grow naturally, they grow unnaturally on the outskirts of the city. Better a few old buildings of questionable value are destroyed than the city become a car dependent doughnut.

The fact of the matter is that we do not have the capacity to accommodate large department stores in the city centre, especially not in a coordinated manner that would allow Waterford to advertise a new cluster of retailers, to compliment what is currently available in city square and elsewhere. I am a huge fan of preserving the city's architectural heritage, and walk through the old city all the time, but cities have to be allowed to develop and we have to set aside a quarter of the city for growth. The city development plan has identified the Newgate centre area as one such quarter.

dayshah

sunnysoutheast wrote: »

That whole area is pretty much dying a slow death anyway.

I would argue that one reason its decaying is the uncertainty over Newgate means people are unwilling to make a decision on investing in their own business until a decision is made (the recession is relevant too). Some people were bought out/didn't renew their lease, in anticipation of the centre. Even if it does bring in increased footfall there would be some disruption in the beginning. So people would rather invest in doing up their shop after (or during) the building work. The best thing is a decision is made one way or the other.

fricatus wrote: »

Hmmm... coulda fooled me...

I've never been against the general idea of a shopping centre with the space to keep H&M happy. I have some problems with the current proposal for the retail element of the development. But I have a BIG problem with the hotel/leisure centre aspect. I think it would be much better for the whole city to use that space for parking, until a better idea comes along.

sunnysoutheast

dayshah wrote: »

I would argue that one reason its decaying is the uncertainty over Newgate means people are unwilling to make a decision on investing in their own business until a decision is made (the recession is relevant too). Some people were bought out/didn't renew their lease, in anticipation of the centre. Even if it does bring in increased footfall there would be some disruption in the beginning. So people would rather invest in doing up their shop after (or during) the building work. The best thing is a decision is made one way or the other.

The point is that a decision WAS made, several times over, which was in accordance with the city's development plan. Albeit years late for well-known reasons with which we're all too familiar, and now external economic factors have put the entire regeneration project in jeopardy. I'd love to know how much investment, growth and jobs have been lost to this city due to the continual objections to projects large and small, usually from people in comfortable, pensionable public sector jobs-for-life.

SSE

merlante

dayshah wrote: »

But I have a BIG problem with the hotel/leisure centre aspect. I think it would be much better for the whole city to use that space for parking, until a better idea comes along.

Well guess what, since then, the Spirit leisure centre opened, and it is thriving. The Fitzwilton hotel opened, and if it's not thriving, it's still there. Now if the shopping centre was good, and leisure centres and hotels have been built (and are still going) in the interim, then what is the big swing whether it's all part of the same development or not?

fricatus

From RTÉ - IT firms to create 165 jobs in Galway, Dublin

Yet another positive jobs announcement for Galway. Fair play to them - I don't begrudge it.

However given that it's a city with a similar population and "peripherality" to Waterford, the question once again has to be asked, what advantages do they have that allow them to (seemingly routinely) attract investment during a recession, when we're haemorrhaging jobs?

When TalkTalk went, Barry O'Leary of the IDA was heard on the news stating that a "deep dive" investigation is needed into why Waterford is failing to attract investment. I wonder if this deep dive has begun, and what they've found.

I suspect if they're honest, they'll find one city with 90,000 people in a 10-minute catchment that benefits from both a university and an IT, and then another city with 70,000 in the same catchment with only an IT.

Are there other things? I believe there are grants available to set jobs up in Galway ("BMW" region) that aren't available in Waterford (S&E region). I can't find any documentation about this online though. Does anyone know what the situation is? I think it relates to the EU's objective I and objective II regions.

If this is the case, then surely there's a case for the south-east to be granted the same status as the west.

Max Powers

fricatus wrote: »

From RTÉ - IT firms to create 165 jobs in Galway, Dublin

Yet another positive jobs announcement for Galway. Fair play to them - I don't begrudge it.

However given that it's a city with a similar population and "peripherality" to Waterford, the question once again has to be asked, what advantages do they have that allow them to (seemingly routinely) attract investment during a recession, when we're haemorrhaging jobs?

When TalkTalk went, Barry O'Leary of the IDA was heard on the news stating that a "deep dive" investigation is needed into why Waterford is failing to attract investment. I wonder if this deep dive has begun, and what they've found.

I suspect if they're honest, they'll find one city with 90,000 people in a 10-minute catchment that benefits from both a university and an IT, and then another city with 70,000 in the same catchment with only an IT.

Are there other things? I believe there are grants available to set jobs up in Galway ("BMW" region) that aren't available in Waterford (S&E region). I can't find any documentation about this online though. Does anyone know what the situation is? I think it relates to the EU's objective I and objective II regions.

If this is the case, then surely there's a case for the south-east to be granted the same status as the west.

It has little to do with the general population of Galway but more to do with IDA favourtisim, more power politically and 'the west' working as a region to get all they can. We need to start working as something similar as it looks like we are suffering the high unemployment that the west did previously, Can our political reps down here work together for betterment of the region, it doesnt look like it when you see Howlin taking VECs from Waterford to his constituency and they are largely silent on the unemployment rate down here. Galway is the gateway in the west, Waterford is in the south east, if you compared the IDA/FDI visits, public service jobs, government departments, internal investment, tourist numbers between the 2 it would show the root of the problem.

Psychedelic

Maybe part of the problem is that the west "region" is really just one county* which is Galway and so they don't have to work as a region and share any FDI amongst several counties.

* Limerick seems to miss out, at least in recent years, on these new jobs announcements.

Whereas in the South East, we have Waterford, Wexford, Carlow and South Tipperary.

Nolanger

Max Powers wrote: »

It has little to do with the general population of Galway

Yes it is. There's a perception that Galway people are less unionised and working-class.

Max Powers

Nolanger wrote: »

Yes it is. There's a perception that Galway people are less unionised and working-class.

I think the unionised thing is over inflated massively, the major strikes were back in the 80s, of course, idiots marching outside Waterford Crystal on the Mall dont help.

Nolanger, What do you mean by working class, do you mean Galway is less working class then Waterford so Galway is more middle-class? I guess they probably have better access to 3rd level education and high-tech industries

Nolanger

Put it this way: a few years back I was in a nightclub in Galway and the only person there who gave me hassle was from Waterford!

fricatus

Nolanger wrote: »

Put it this way: a few years back I was in a nightclub in Galway and the only person there who gave me hassle was from Waterford!

What'cha sayin' boi eyyy? I puck de head offa ya!

Seriously though... Waterford is not without its scumbags I know, but that shouldn't tar the rest of us.

Jesus, I was in Cork there just before Christmas last year and there was a whole gang of 16 year old scum - about six or seven of them - just letting bangers off and fcuking half-empty Fanta cans at passersby, including tourists - worse than anything I've ever seen in Waterford. And this in Lonely Planet's favourite city and a former European Capital of Culture!