The CoCo has a new unlimited budget.

Mint Sauce

What would you do?

A lot of mine would be infrastructure related, so...

Pedestrianise OConnell, Castle, and Gratten Streets, only open them to Commercial Traffic in mornings for Deliveries. Wine Street would be semi pedestrianised, only open to traffic at peak times. New street furniture, surfacing, etc, on all. To overcome all this, all the surrounding roads will be will need oneway or twoway traffic reviewed, new access roads to Wine Street Carpark, and resurface the current surface of the moon that it currently is. To take the new amount of traffic on the relief road, build the Eastern Garvouge Bridge, and a new tunnel under the mouth of the Garvouge, starting the N4 Caltragh Junction, finishing just after Supermacs and Hendersons Ford on the N15.

DC the N15 all the way to Bundoran, I know some of this will need Leitrim CoCo funding, but to be honest, since half the country does not realise Leitrim exists, and the other half does not realise you have to pass through a small corner of it, to get from Sligo to Donegal, and with Sligos new wealth, we can over come that.

Do something, do anything, with the N16 to the Leitrim Border, I know I made comments about people now knowing about Leitrim, but 1 or 2 may miss Manorhamilton if it suddenly disappeared.

Extend the N4 HQDC all the way to Castlebaldwin, and forget the current plans for a 2+2 DC, then reclassify the whole thing as motorway. Whilst at it, DC the N17 to Charlestown.

Throw the owners of Tescos and The Quayside a few bob, possibly the worst laid out Tescos and Shopping centre I have ever encountered. Even in the last week, three people have asked me how to get from the Carpark to the Main Street.

Pay/bribe/tempt M&S to open a store in the Old Source Building, likewise for Burger King to return to Sligo.

A public toilet or two. Wine Street and Quay Street Carparks will do.

A new Fire Station, purely because, even after 11 years in Sligo, still not quite sure where the current is.

Get rid of them daft City Core signs. We are not a City.

Pay me, and the other good Sligo members of Boards as consultants, as I am sure, many more good ideas will come from this thread.

Radharc na Sleibhte

Even with my unlimited budget im not sure id waste the money on the N15.
Thats a lovely road in the main and part of the wild atlantic way, i'd personally hate to see it dual carriage and crash barriers and big massive signs etc etc. Obviously theres more important things than being pretty when it comes to roads though

Would throw money at o'connel st, wine street and wine street car park though.

SligoBrewer

We may give out about Sligo; but moving away to another similarly sized town in Ireland has me a bit more appreciative of the work of our council. The recreation facilities in our town are fantastic; parks, trails, pitches, and the running track in Cleveragh is so under-utilised it is criminal.

The town is clean and despite all the closed shops it is not dilapidated.

What would I do though? Get rid of Wine Street car park and replace it with a town square, likewise with Stephen Street car park. Car parks are a horrible thing to build your town around. Build them a distance away; like the Showgrounds one or Connaughton Road and make people walk into the town centre. Leave small amounts of parking for disabled drivers.

I really hate car parks.

Geuze

Note that central Govt is responsible for National roads, it pays for the construction and maintenance of N-roads.

Mint Sauce

Geuze wrote: »

Note that central Govt is responsible for National roads, it pays for the construction and maintenance of N-roads.

We now have more money than them, we can do what we like!

Vlove

All we need is a proper layout of Sligo especially regarding Tecso Carpark. It looks tired, worn out with potholes nearly all over the place and a lot of cigarettes thrown on the ground. Its like the town doesn't want any vistors admiring the town itself. Also I honestly think Tesco should move its premises to where finiskin park is as you are able to get parking there and wouldn't be expensive for the owners, just saying!

rdavey14

Mint Sauce wrote: »

Pedestrianise OConnell, Castle, and Gratten Streets, only open them to Commercial Traffic in mornings for Deliveries. Wine Street would be semi pedestrianised, only open to traffic at peak times.

I think that would be a disaster for traffic.

Mint Sauce

rdavey14 wrote: »

I think that would be a disaster for traffic.

Hence why we would we reconfigure the one way systems, build the eastern bridge, and tunnel under the Garavouge to the west to relieve it all.

SligoBrewer

rdavey14 wrote: »

I think that would be a disaster for traffic.

Why does town need traffic? Get rid of cars from the town.

L.Jenkins

So what would I do with such a budget? Invest in Enterprise Ireland, Local Schools and the IT to generate growth and job creation. Car Parking and Free Car Parking in the town itself.

rdavey14

SligoBrewer wrote: »

rdavey14 wrote: »

I think that would be a disaster for traffic.

Why does town need traffic? Get rid of cars from the town.

Please no more bike lanes :P

Vlove

rdavey14 wrote: »

Please no more bike lanes :P

It would be ideal to have bike lanes actually in the town and all over the country. Seriously, traffic can be a joke around the town.

rdavey14

Vlove wrote: »

rdavey14 wrote: »

Please no more bike lanes :P

It would be ideal to have bike lanes actually in the town and all over the country. Seriously, traffic can be a joke around the town.

If they were designed right. A few of them are a joke

Scarlet42

increase the salary of our local politicians, how some of them survive is beyond me!

T-Bird

For me I would look to advertise to the service industries.

Certain parts of Sligo now have very high speed internet capabilities. This is perfect for data companies as well as service industries. The costs and set up times will be low and there are plenty of empty buildings in Finisklin that will do the job. For me it's a huge loss of a major opportunity.

rdavey14

T-Bird wrote: »

For me I would look to advertise to the service industries.

Certain parts of Sligo now have very high speed internet capabilities. This is perfect for data companies as well as service industries. The costs and set up times will be low and there are plenty of empty buildings in Finisklin that will do the job. For me it's a huge loss of a major opportunity.

What would you consider very high?

T-Bird

rdavey14 wrote: »

What would you consider very high?

As in broadband speed? 1000mb (1gb) download a second capability. Grange and a few other places have ftth now.

rdavey14

T-Bird wrote: »

rdavey14 wrote: »

What would you consider very high?

As in broadband speed? 1000mb (1gb) download a second capability. Grange and a few other places have ftth now.

Didn't know sligo had that speed, fastest I say was 75 megabits / second

T-Bird

rdavey14 wrote: »

Didn't know sligo had that speed, fastest I say was 75 megabits / second

It's only certain parts.

https://www.siliconrepublic.com/comms/eir-reveals-first-100k-rural-locations-to-get-1gbps-broadband

rdavey14

T-Bird wrote: »

rdavey14 wrote: »

It's only certain parts.

https://www.siliconrepublic.com/comms/eir-reveals-first-100k-rural-locations-to-get-1gbps-broadband

Just to make my previous post clear

Didn't know sligo had that speed, fastest I saw (say-saw typo) was 75 megabits / second

T-Bird

rdavey14 wrote: »

Just to make my previous post clear

Didn't know sligo had that speed, fastest I saw (say-saw typo) was 75 megabits / second

Understood. I posted the link mainly to show that it was year old news and I really do think this should have been utilised more to attract service based companies to compliment the pharmaceuticals.

If I were in charge of the budget, I would invest in attracting companies first, the broadband is a good start, then perhaps some tax incentives (aka Masonite and the old MBNA in Leitrim) etc. Then work on the infrastructure.

People will have more money, the population might rise, there will be more demand therefore it will attract the shops again.

For me you need a core hub and employment is the way. We have not got the capability up here for high powered industries (a sub station had to be built especially to power Masonite), so its either low powered industries like the pharmaceuticals, data companies (cloud) or service industries.

Mint Sauce

Just because they advertise FTTH, does that mean 1000mb/s? I can get FTTH through the SIRO/ESB network, but most companies only advertise 300mb/s. Until I decide what I want, I am though quite happy with, 70-90mb/s on a up to 100mb/s FTTC deal.

I like the idea of attracting companies though, real shame to see empty buildings in Finnisklin. Had to laugh this morning though, flicking through the Champion, about visions for what Sligo Docklands could look like in 2040, and thought of all the talk about redevoping Wine Street Carpark when I first came to Sligo 11 years ago, and still little changed other that the opening of Johnsons Court. Having the money to build all this stuff is one thing, the other thing is inviting businesses and companies to use and fill them.