Ireland 2040 plan "will kill rural Ireland"

wakka12

I don't get the idea of forcing tiny towns like athlone to develop into something important
It would be a lot more effective and beneficial to just build a new town at that stage with well planned zoning,road layout and everything else than pumping loads of money into some provincial town and trying to make its already established and small scale urban fabric something its not
Places like athlone have no infrastructure or anything remarkable about to warrant large investment in it that wouldn't be more beneficial than starting a new town which could easily and very quickly grow to same size as athlone, but it'd be a lot more efficient town

Topgear on Dave

Sean O Rourke has now moved on to one off houses.

Another debate about how people build one off houses and then have to "fight for services".

Harry Palmr

wakka12 wrote: »

I don't get the idea of forcing tiny towns like athlone to develop into something important
It would be a lot more effective and beneficial to just build a new town at that stage with well planned zoning,road layout and everything else than pumping loads of money into some provincial town and trying to make its already established and small scale urban fabric something its not
Places like athlone have no infrastructure or anything remarkable about to warrant large investment in it that wouldn't be more beneficial than starting a new town which could easily and very quickly grow to same size as athlone, but it'd be a lot more efficient town

There is a case to be made to develop a large centre in the geographic centre of the country. Somewhere that is well placed for available cheap land on a main route (N6, and the Shannon river) that can act as an east-west pivot between Dublin and Galway. When you look at a map it's pretty bereft of economic activity outside agriculture.

Topgear on Dave

Harry Palmr wrote: »

There is a case to be made to develop a large centre in the geographic centre of the country.

Id agree. But it wont be allowed by the politicians of Tullamore/Mullingar etc etc

bk

bk wrote: »

I don't get why us Irish people are so obsessed with large homes. What about quality over quantity?

You are presenting a false dichotomy - those aren't the only two things to trade off and they aren't mutually exclusive. Commuting time, family support, leisure opportunities, caring commitments, money are some of the other possible considerations.

If the alternative was better (however people define better - bigger, cheaper or whatever people value) and available people would change but people like myself continue to make the decision to build for ourselves.

cgcsb

Shurimgreat wrote: »

No. They are over-reacting and still living as if we are in the recession.
We've moved on. The economy is on its feet again. We are nearing full employment. We don't need to bend over backwards to get every job possible.
We don't need to put thousands of new jobs in the city centre to satisfy short term political needs, and forget about the long term misery for commuters.
I suppose I can be objective about this as I don't live in Dublin. But looking from outside, its easy to see the mistakes being made. If you want to be crushed on the Luas every morning or backed up in buses while the Luas passes by, then by all means keep doing what you are doing. More jobs for the city centre is certainly the way to achieve this. :rolleyes:
If only there was another way?!

In Dublin City Centre we can provide more trams, buses and trains as demand grows. We cannot do that in rural areas or small towns where there is insufficient density of employment and population to support such services.

BrianBoru00

wakka12 wrote: »

I don't get the idea of forcing tiny towns like athlone to develop into something important
It would be a lot more effective and beneficial to just build a new town at that stage with well planned zoning,road layout and everything else than pumping loads of money into some provincial town and trying to make its already established and small scale urban fabric something its not
Places like athlone have no infrastructure or anything remarkable about to warrant large investment in it that wouldn't be more beneficial than starting a new town which could easily and very quickly grow to same size as athlone, but it'd be a lot more efficient town

Athlone is not a tiny town. Perhaps you should check your facts before contributing as you seem to just bark out ridiculous comments - you want to buid a new town instead of developing Athlone which already has a large third level college, 4 secondary schools, two large shopping centres, a rail line and is the most important crossing point on the river Shannon on the main M6 motorway - approximately midway between Galway and Dublin and with a population of 21k and large tracts of lands to develop between the river and the motorway. There are also major multinational IT and Pharmaceutical firms located there.

Do you have anything to contribute which you could actually back up?

wakka12

Harry Palmr wrote: »

There is a case to be made to develop a large centre in the geographic centre of the country. Somewhere that is well placed for available cheap land on a main route (N6, and the Shannon river) that can act as an east-west pivot between Dublin and Galway. When you look at a map it's pretty bereft of economic activity outside agriculture.

Yeh Im sure the area needs economic support. But as I said, you'd be better off having a large scale plan for a new town that could act a lynch pin between several other established midlands town and they could grow together into a city maybe. You could plan this new town with good transport development (or potential routes laid out and maintained if money isn't there yet) from the start, nice squares and public space from the start,lots of greenspace, the right amount of schools and services for the population calculated right from the start, well zoned, no urban sprawl to deal with, good building height and density. any money pumped into this tiny little town with historic street pattern that will never become succesful without changing the town massively , and if you come to that stage whats the point of ever having invested in athlone? If you're at a point where it needs to be changed so much to be successful, surely that defeats the purpose of developing it if its no longer like it was, and would be better off having started anew

cgcsb

dr.fuzzenstein wrote: »

OK, so how about this.
If it really galls you SO much that people live rurally, create a fund to purchase all one-off houses on CPO and pay to relocate all rural dwellers into houses or apartments that have connections to electricity, water, gas, sewage and proper waste water system.
All purchased houses would have to be demolished by the state.
I'm sure that is a totally workable solution, not only from a financial point of view but also from a point of view of dumping a million or more extra people into towns and villages, especially in ireland where infrastructure is never designed for peak demand, but only ever for average demand.
What will it cost to upgrade infrastructure and services when half of Ireland decides to move?
Suddenly not looking too rosy anymore that smart plan, isn't it?

There's no need for any of that, a shift to urbanization will take place gradually and naturally if the subsidies are ended. All that needs to be done is
1)ban the construction of new one off homes that are more than 1km from their nearest village, with exemptions made for farmers and foresters
2)bring in a septic tank charge to fund a septic tank inspection regime which will cut pollution of the water table instantly
3)End all of the broadband schemes

The result is over a period of 20 years our population will gradually rebalance to a more sustainable settlement pattern. An overnight schange as you suggest would be unworkable.

Topgear on Dave

wakka12 wrote: »

Yeh Im sure the area needs economic support. But as I said, you'd be better off having a large scale plan for a new town that could act a lynch pin between several other established midlands town and they could grow together into a city maybe.

In an ideal world with a bottomless pit of cash we could.

But right now we just have to work with what we have where the people are already living and working.

The best any government can do at one time is small adjustments, not major revolutions.

cgcsb

Shurimgreat wrote: »

Depopulating the rest of the country and piling more and more people into one or two large urban centres like Dublin is not the solution. The infrastructure resources of Dublin are limited. Its obvious to most people adding more LUAS carriages or extending the LUAS is not the answer. You extend the LUAS, more people go on it, leading to more congestion. Either go underground or put the brakes on further industry and new jobs in Dublin city centre.
And to think our politicians were hoping to attract thousands of workers to the Docklands and IFSC as a result of Brexit. Where would they live and how would they commute? Ah sure I guess the politicians don't care as long as they get more tax. The whole thing is beyond a farce.

Dublin's infrastructure is limited because we've blown the infrastructure budget on MEGA motorways to Tuam and New Ross. ,maintenance of an impossibly large road L road network and lets not forget an impossible to implement broadband scheme. Altogether billions wasted on that rubbish.

Topgear on Dave

Shurimgreat wrote: »

Ah sure I guess the politicians don't care as long as they get more tax. The whole thing is beyond a farce.

Lets see how Ireland in general gets along if they dont get all that sweet FDI tax.

What areas will suffer the most?

People left my home town to beat the band during the last bust.

I grew up with a large circle of cousins in rural cavan, Iv seen three quarters of them all move to Dublin, Cork, London, Perth, Sydney, Chicago and a few other places in the last 15-20 years.

Im not against rural Ireland but it needs to grow in a planned way to stop Dublin sucking in everything, and sacrifices must be made to achieve this.

cgcsb

blanch152 wrote: »

The plan is to double the size of Cork, Limerick, Galway and Waterford. Dublin will grow but at a much slower pace, so the points you make are immaterial.

Well that's what the plan sets out. In reality global economic forces mean more people will be going to bigger cities so it's more likely that Dublin will double in size and the other cities will see more modest growth. The first mistake people make when considering these 'plans' is that they assume the government controls growth, it doesn't, it can merely facilitate it or not facilitate it.

dr.fuzzenstein

cgcsb wrote: »

There's no need for any of that, a shift to urbanization will take place gradually and naturally if the subsidies are ended. All that needs to be done is
1)ban the construction of new one off homes that are more than 1km from their nearest village, with exemptions made for farmers and foresters
2)bring in a septic tank charge to fund a septic tank inspection regime which will cut pollution of the water table instantly
3)End all of the broadband schemes

The result is over a period of 20 years our population will gradually rebalance to a more sustainable settlement pattern. An overnight schange as you suggest would be unworkable.

Well, I agree with point 1. Planning in Ireland is an idiotic, moronic, corrut, gombeen-ism driven shambles.
Despite this it is slow, complicated, expensive, I can only guess to give the impression that some kind of though process is involved other than to shut the plans in a drawer for several months, take them out and rubberstamp them.
Despite all this, the countryside of Ireland looks like a giant monster stuck several thousand houses up it's nose and sneezed them all over Ireland.
The problem is, Ireland was fcuked up by decades of poor to no planning, so you are where you are and can't easily back out of it. Because gradual or not, houses have a long life-span, this plan could take 100 years for a majority of houses to naturally end their life-cycle.
You want it in 20 years? OK, we're back at "buy my house and give me a new one in Dublin city center, nah only loking, I'm not fcuking moving"

Point 2 - there is a septic tank charge and there are inspections. Ireland style. I.e. there are something like 2 inspectors for the entire country and it will take 64000 years for them to inspect even close to most of the houses.
The septic tank charge notice I binned and never heard from it again.

Point 3 - Nah

In the end, as I said, this will effect mostly new builds, or there could be a new drive to depopulate and desolate the countryside, with a new generation of abandoned houses, they could sit scenically beside the ruins of the famine cottages. Since it is policy to devestate the countryside anyway, I'm sure it would be grand now. This is just the same anto countryside circle jerk that comes along every now and then.
You have a countryside, it is what it is and if you don't like it, Jesus, every country in the world has a countryside, you can't force people to live where YOU want, unless you're talking about China or Stalin's Russia.

cgcsb

Luka Lemon Town wrote: »

Urban dwellers can't survive without the food that floods in from rural areas.

Which they pay for at the tills and through excessive small farm subsidy.

dr.fuzzenstein

cgcsb wrote: »

Which they pay for at the tills and through excessive small farm subsidy.

So let's import all the food along with all the fuel and anything else.
This kind of idiotic boxed-in thinking will ensure Ireland will never be Switzerland or Norway, both of which have very nice countryside BTW

cgcsb

Luka Lemon Town wrote: »

Not only that but the figures that people sprout are not giving the real story when you consider how many people travel into cities from rural areas to work and shop. These are no doubt being considered as "city taxpayers" and "city spenders" when the figures are being massaged to suit an anti-rural agenda.

You're fundamentally not understanding the thread there are no ethnic or cultural 'urbanites' or 'rural dwellers'. The discussion is about economic activity. If you are someone from a one off home in Cpounty Longford who works and spends money in Athlone, the economic activity is in Athlone, not the one off home in rural Longford.

Sam Russell

BrianBoru00 wrote: »

Athlone is not a tiny town. Perhaps you should check your facts before contributing as you seem to just bark out ridiculous comments - you want to buid a new town instead of developing Athlone which already has a large third level college, 4 secondary schools, two large shopping centres, a rail line and is the most important crossing point on the river Shannon on the main M6 motorway - approximately midway between Galway and Dublin and with a population of 21k and large tracts of lands to develop between the river and the motorway. There are also major multinational IT and Pharmaceutical firms located there.

Do you have anything to contribute which you could actually back up?

Athlone has a major flooding problem.

cgcsb

MeTheMan wrote: »

It may only have 28% of the population but Dublin has around 45% of employment.

Correct urban areas attract employment

Harry Palmr

Sam Russell wrote: »

Athlone has a major flooding problem.

To be fair that's nothing that some proper engineering and a pipeline to Dublin can't fix

cgcsb

cgcsb wrote: »

There's no need for any of that, a shift to urbanization will take place gradually and naturally if the subsidies are ended. All that needs to be done is
1)ban the construction of new one off homes that are more than 1km from their nearest village, with exemptions made for farmers and foresters
2)bring in a septic tank charge to fund a septic tank inspection regime which will cut pollution of the water table instantly
3)End all of the broadband schemes

The result is over a period of 20 years our population will gradually rebalance to a more sustainable settlement pattern. An overnight schange as you suggest would be unworkable.

Again all stick, no carrot.

Our population is urbanising, has been for decades and will continue to do so.

Lots of people have been saying how great/terrible urban/rural living is but nobody is proposing practical ways to make the urban alternative more attractive.

cgcsb

Shurimgreat wrote: »

Its madness to encourage the growth of more jobs around the docklands given the current infrastructure and housing difficulties.

yet we have a cohort of politicians diverting funding away from infrastructure and housing in Dublin because they want more IDA grants and fibre broadband down their boreen.

Shurimgreat

cgcsb wrote: »

Dublin's infrastructure is limited because we've blown the infrastructure budget on MEGA motorways to Tuam and New Ross. ,maintenance of an impossibly large road L road network and lets not forget an impossible to implement broadband scheme. Altogether billions wasted on that rubbish.

You are completely Dublin-centric in your opinions. Its like you can't look beyond the Pale or something.

Do you accept Dublin is experiencing a massive shortage of housing? You cannot just snap your fingers and houses appear. It will take decades to build the houses required and it simply isn't going to happen given the incompetence of Dublin planners. At the same time, the more demand for houses, the more the cost of building land in Dublin goes up, meaning the cost of houses and apartments going up, well beyond the ordinary person. Rents also go up.
Dublin is stuck in a vicious circle of limited/next to no supply and rapidly rising demand. I genuinely don't think the Dublin-centric brigade understand basic economic laws around supply and demand. I keep hearing the same wishy-washy nonsense about the need to build more houses, when clearly there is nowhere near enough being built. They don't understand the obstacles to more houses being built, the main obstacle being it takes years to build estates and apartment complexes, whereas it takes only a few months for new workers to move to Dublin, putting more pressure on limited supply.

Watching the growing chaotic development of Dublin is like watching a car-crash in slow motion.

MayoSalmon

dr.fuzzenstein wrote:

This kind of idiotic boxed-in thinking will ensure Ireland will never be Switzerland or Norway, both of which have very nice countryside BTW

In terms of GDP per capita were already ahead of both Norway and Switzerland and we have countryside and scenery to rival both.

In terms of energy resources Norway is oil rich and the Swiss generate half their energy via Nuclear.

cgcsb

Tell me how wrote: »

Some would argue we've done the invest in Dublin and it hasn't worked.

But they would be historically and factually incorrect. The first new rail line built since the establishment of the Irish free state was the original 2 luas lines and that was in 2004. Most similar sized European cities spent billions(adjusting for inflation) incrementally improving their Cities.

Shurimgreat

cgcsb wrote: »

yet we have a cohort of politicians diverting funding away from infrastructure and housing in Dublin because they want more IDA grants and fibre broadband down their boreen.

Yes, the national broadband roll-out is the cause of Dublin's badly planned chaos. :rolleyes:

You really are clutching at straws.

Topgear on Dave

MayoSalmon wrote: »

In terms of GDP per capita were already ahead of both Norway and Switzerland and we have countryside and scenery to rival both.

In terms of energy resources Norway is oil rich and the Swiss generate half their energy via Nuclear.

Our GDP is quite a shaky figure to rely on due to the amount of money that multinationals transfer in and out with tax tricks.

http://www.thejournal.ie/ireland-gdp-figures-2874900-Jul2016/

How could we really be ahead of Norway, it floats on oil!

This sort of stuff should worry us, if money can move in to Ireland for tax reasons it can just as easily move out.

cgcsb

cgcsb wrote: »

yet we have a cohort of politicians diverting funding away from infrastructure and housing in Dublin because they want more IDA grants and fibre broadband down their boreen.

Politicians representing their own area is hardly shocking or unusual?

A quick search suggests the Dublin received IDA funding about in proportion to its population in 2016. Some counties got nothing.
https://www.irishtimes.com/business/three-counties-got-no-ida-grant-funding-last-year-1.3299562?mode=amp
How much should they get?

snotboogie

wakka12 wrote: »

I don't get the idea of forcing tiny towns like athlone to develop into something important
It would be a lot more effective and beneficial to just build a new town at that stage with well planned zoning,road layout and everything else than pumping loads of money into some provincial town and trying to make its already established and small scale urban fabric something its not
Places like athlone have no infrastructure or anything remarkable about to warrant large investment in it that wouldn't be more beneficial than starting a new town which could easily and very quickly grow to same size as athlone, but it'd be a lot more efficient town

How are you going to convince people to move to this new town? How are you going to convince companies to set up there? If you look at purpose built cities that grew rapidly over the last two hundred years or so, there are two ways to do it; 1. Move the entire function of the capital city to the new town, like Brasilia, Canberra or Washington DC. I would class this as politically impossible in Ireland. 2. You give the city legal or economic exemptions, like Dubai, Shenzhen or Las Vegas. What rules are available to be loosened?

Topgear on Dave

Deleted User wrote: »

Politicians representing their own area is hardly shocking or unusual?

A quick search suggests the Dublin received IDA funding about in proportion to its population in 2016. Some counties got nothing.
https://www.irishtimes.com/business/three-counties-got-no-ida-grant-funding-last-year-1.3299562?mode=amp
How much should they get?

Where can the investment be best spent?

Where can the country get maximum return for its investment?