Bray Seafront Flooded

murpho999

zoobizoo wrote: »

You don't live here, you don't visit yet you feel the need to come on and criticise the town ....... sheesh. Where do you live now that is better?

The whole place is a positive. I've lived on 4 different continents and Bray is where I choose to make my home.

Theatre
Art House Cinema
Great Pubs
New restaurants
Promenade, Bray Head, Cliff Walk
Close to Dublin and close to the countryside
Summerfest, AirShow
St Patricks Festival Week
Jazz Festival Weekend
Gospel Festival
Groove Festival
Kilruddery House and Gardens
Sports Clubs (GAA, football, tennis, etc etc etc)
Good coffee shops (and most reasonably priced coffee in a coffee shop in Ireland)
Two new bakeries
Two art Galleries

Plus, lots of interesting people. Maybe you need to just live here to appreciate it.

Curious as to what coffee shops you find so good in Bray?

Also where are the new bakeries, I saw one on the Main St but where is the other one?

As for Art galleries, do you mean the likes of Signal? Not exactly The Louvre is it?

Hard to argue with Judgement Day's opinion about the town being run down, especially along the Main Street.

Calibos

The Southern Martello Tower was demolished and the stone used to build the Promenade afaik.

I think half of Brays problem for the last several decades has been one of reputation which hasn't helped investment. You only have to mention you're from Bray on Boards and the slagging will start.

"Ure from Braaaaaaaay! Jaysus wha?! Brayruit haha".

...and where praytell are you from Sir?

Ballybrack!!

As far as I'm concerned the arrival of the dart was a blessing and a curse at the same time. Bray may have been a shadow of its former glory by the late seventies and early 80's but what started arriving on the dart did the towns reputation no favours.

Anyone else notice that other than certain elements attracted down/out by the funfair in the Summer that the seafront area has been reasonably gentrified and full of families foreign and domestic, walkers, dog walkers, joggers every day weather permitting even in the Summer. The fortunes off two east coast seafront areas changed one Summer in 2006 IIRC. The reason?? The Dart Line was closed for line maintenence every weekend the entire Summer of 2006. Dublins hordes chose a new daytrip destination in lieu of Bray. Portmarnock. And what is Portmarnock in the news for every year since? Riots. Luckily in the years since the line closures in 2006, the younger children/brothers/sisters of the Dublin regulars to Bray followed them to their new haunts in Portmarnock rather than their parents haunts in Bray from the decades before. For the most part, they haven't come back in large numbers. Hence, more and more locals and families from outside the town using the seafront because it doesn't have the air of menace it used to have on a Summers day.

Bray has no more undesirables than any other town with 30000 people. I've never felt unsafe walking the town. Our poor reputation was based on our imported troublemakers from the big smoke. The sooner the town can shed this poor reputation built up in the minds of boardsies and the commuter belt, the sooner we'll see more investment rather than, "I'm not investing in Bray, its a dodgy kip"

Annasopra

Maudi wrote: »

Whether you remember the demolition of the tower or not is irrelevant.(judgeing by your statement you have absolutely no appreciation of history or culture id say) The fact that it and other historical buildings can .could and will be demolished by an incompetent local authority is whats worrying..and by going to china to source metal seat backs is almost unbelieveable and backs up their incompetent approach...I cannot accept the best pratice was going how many thousands of miles for replacements?and the same for that crap they paved the main st with..I.i.r.c that was a horrofic price and brought in from china..buy irish me hole..

I don't judge the competence of an organisation based on something that happened 130 years ago. I agree that some of the things you mentioned were shameful but I really don't know why you use ancient examples to judge an organisation.

B0jangles

I also like to point out that replicating large pieces of ornate metalwork is not necessarily an easy process for a foundry which normally handles completely different work. It may simply not be commercially viable for an Irish firm to go through the process of creating the moulds and setting up a process to create a single promenade's worth of replacement pieces.

Given that the article was published in a paper with a wide circulation and specifically quotes BTC as saying local firms were not up to the job; do you not think that said local firms would have raised a bit of an outcry if that it was not true?

Also unless the council is made up entirely of immortals, I think they can hardly be held responsible for bad decisions made well over 100 years ago.

zoobizoo

murpho999 wrote: »

Curious as to what coffee shops you find so good in Bray?

Also where are the new bakeries, I saw one on the Main St but where is the other one?

As for Art galleries, do you mean the likes of Signal? Not exactly The Louvre is it?

Hard to argue with Judgement Day's opinion about the town being run down, especially along the Main Street.

Mamma Mia, Gusto & Campo.
There is a new bakery on the Albert Walk
No, I would hardly expect galleries in a town of 35,000 to be anyway similar to a world renowned gallery in a capital city.

zoobizoo

Judgement Day wrote: »

There's a serious smell of bs and spin off that article. Any foundry worth a damn could have cast new seat backs using an original as a pattern and if no Irish company could do it I'm 100% positive that an English company would have been delighted with the opportunity.

HAve you any experience in getting metal backseats moulded?

RosieJoe

Calibos wrote: »

As far as I'm concerned the arrival of the dart was a blessing and a curse at the same time. Bray may have been a shadow of its former glory by the late seventies and early 80's but what started arriving on the dart did the towns reputation no favours.

Anyone else notice that other than certain elements attracted down/out by the funfair in the Summer that the seafront area has been reasonably gentrified and full of families foreign and domestic, walkers, dog walkers, joggers every day weather permitting even in the Summer. The fortunes off two east coast seafront areas changed one Summer in 2006 IIRC. The reason?? The Dart Line was closed for line maintenence every weekend the entire Summer of 2006. Dublins hordes chose a new daytrip destination in lieu of Bray. Portmarnock. And what is Portmarnock in the news for every year since? Riots. Luckily in the years since the line closures in 2006, the younger children/brothers/sisters of the Dublin regulars to Bray followed them to their new haunts in Portmarnock rather than their parents haunts in Bray from the decades before. For the most part, they haven't come back in large numbers. Hence, more and more locals and families from outside the town using the seafront because it doesn't have the air of menace it used to have on a Summers day.

Bray has no more undesirables than any other town with 30000 people. I've never felt unsafe walking the town. Our poor reputation was based on our imported troublemakers from the big smoke. The sooner the town can shed this poor reputation built up in the minds of boardsies and the commuter belt, the sooner we'll see more investment rather than, "I'm not investing in Bray, its a dodgy kip"

Are you seriously trying to convince us that Bray's reputation is solely down to people coming in on the DART? Really

And the hordes of people descending in the summer to Killiney beach, white rock and Sandycove give these areas a constant bad reputation! And by your logic, Portmarnock must be an absolute shít hole. No, actually none of them have that type of reputation.

Judgement Day

zoobizoo wrote: »

HAve you any experience in getting metal backseats moulded?

I have as it happens and I also know of some other sites in Ireland where new cast iron fencing was made using existing moulds. Give me time and I'll come back with more details. I can assure you that, in my experience, most things can be sourced in Ireland or the UK if the effort is made but local authorities are notorious for wasting public money.

.243

Judgement Day wrote: »

I have as it happens and I also know of some other sites in Ireland where new cast iron fencing was made using existing moulds. Give me time and I'll come back with more details. I can assure you that, in my experience, most things can be sourced in Ireland or the UK if the effort is made but local authorities are notorious for wasting public money.

like this company
http://www.hartecast.com/traditional-seats-benches-ireland/

Wally Runs

I am not sure that this company is actually a foundry, which is what is required. There are very few foundries left in Ireland as a whole and the ones that are about tend to be small artisan ones or they are not casting iron, but lighter metals. Many such companies may design and manufacture items, but that does not necessarily mean they cast them. This tends to be sub-contracted out, for instance Waterford stoves are cast in the UK and a considerable amount of the Irish stove furniture is cast elsewhere and assembled here.

Tippex

.243 wrote: »

like this company
http://www.hartecast.com/traditional-seats-benches-ireland/

I would be surprised if this hadn't gone out to tender (might be wrong on that).
TBH the fact that they were brought in from china is 100% irrelevant as it was a Bray Company who were engaged to provide the seat backs and it was them who subsequently engaged a foundry in china.
Without knowing the process that was gone through to decide on who won the contract we can only surmise.
So I think in this case its wrong to be blaming the council.

*I am in no way a fan of the council and think a lot of the decisions they have made over the last 25 or so years have been absolutely bonkers and short sighted *

Zebbedee

Judgement Day wrote: »

I've been out of Bray since 1989 and the seats backs had been disappearing for years before that - likewise the half smashed light columns at the steps. The timber seating which was still very much intact in the late 1960s was also allowed to gradually disappear. The UDC have a truly awful record when it comes to maintenance. The original turquoise blue and orange paint scheme on the railings and seatbacks was much more striking than the present back and red.



I still visit the town every couple of years but it only depresses me now.

Personally I prefer this older colour scheme. I realize other people will have different opinions. Could somebody more clever than I set up some sort of poll perhaps?