How hostile will the new government be for Waterford?

spaceCreated

alias no.9 wrote: »

Interesting that you make the point about a centrally located Airport, do you think any consideration was given to the location of Waterford Airport in the context of it being a regional airport for the South East?

As an outsider looking in, I hear Waterford people declare it the capital of the South East but I don't see anything that demonstrates much consideration of the needs of the region when planning infrastructure apart from counting the population of the south east when demanding something for Waterford. I certainly don't get the impression that people in Wexford, Carlow, Kilkenny or South Tipp look at Waterford as their regional capital.

Taking the Airport as an example, it couldn't have been situated in a more inaccessible place in Waterford when it comes to access from the rest of the south east region. Access has been improved with the new Suir Bridge and ring road but in reality, the airport was dead before that opened. Had it been somewhere around Granny, it may have drawn in more passengers from the region but the local Waterford / Kilkenny politics could never have let that happen.

All that said, I like Waterford and have family there. As a city, its core is probably bigger than Galway without even taking into consideration the North Quays, it has huge potential to regenerate and grow where as there's little room in Galway for anything other than suburbs.

You're definitely right about people not seeing it as a regional capital which is very damaging for the region. I know a lot of kilkenny, wexford and tipp. people who have goine to the Wit and stayed. Pretty much everyone I know who went to the wit and work in waterford wouldn't be staying in the south east unless the wit had been there. I also know quite a few people who went to uni outside of the region and are never going to come back.

Theres a massive brain drain going on and part of developing the region is to make sure there is a third level education facility that can improve the region economically so it does become somewhere people will stay. The south east as a region is caught in a vicous circle where a lot of businesses will not locate here because there aren't enough graduates or existing employees to recruit.

I'd be surprised that there would be any business firms like state street or bny or tech firms like redhat, or even vhi located in the south east if wit wasn't here. We are missing massive opportunities for companies to locate not just here because they're looking at Ireland, but it might draw in some companies that think dublin, cork, limerick and galway are far too expensive for office space.

Genuinely I think the opportunity for Waterford as well as Kilkenny and Wexford to grow are going to be wasted, the brain drain will likely continue and it will eventually become a region that becomes a burden on the rest of Ireland. A relatively small investment now in third level education would likely offer massive benefits for both the region and country as a whole by eliminating the future burden.

Stopitwillya

Have to agree with the previous poster about the airport. It is in the wrong location and somewhere like slieverue or kilmacow would make it more attractive to sell as an airport for the south east.
However of all the issues facing the south east (north Quays, 24/7 cardiac care, University status) I think the airport issue is of the least importance.
For me the university issue is most important. A University in WIT (not this stupid Technical University nonsense) will help attract companies to not only Waterford but also Wexford, Clonmel and Kilkenny. This can help decrease the south east regions unemployment rate of 6.9%, the highest by far of any region in the country and stop the brain drain from the south east to Dublin and Cork.

azimuth17

The late Nicky fewer told me that Kilmacow was actively considered but was rejected because of Tory Hill, so I would not be going into political flights (excuse me) of fancy or conspiracy theories..

As one poster has already said, access to the airport is very easy now, but this is 35 years after Ryanair started there. I understand that the current plans for the airport were based on aircraft maintenance and charter business? Anyone who follows Waterford Aviation page on FB can see that the airport is used extensively by private planes large and small. Its a vital regional resource in that respect alone and the runway deserves to be extended, for very small money, on that basis.

Max Powers

rebs23 wrote: »

I know the site very well and fair enough with those points but the reasoning and economic justification up to this point has been that it will facilitate a very significant private sector investment.
If they can stand on their own merits so be it but if the North Quays does not go ahead it will have little to do with the bridge or the train station.

the bridge and train station has everything to do with the site and the private investment, you wouldn't build there unless there was decent access, in order for decent access to be in place, a pedestrian bridge is needed.

micosoft

spaceCreated wrote: »

Only in ireland would we make sure we definitely have enough admin staff doing very little when we have a massive shortage of nurses, doctors, beds and facilities. Yes the staff costs are too high for Ireland and I understand basic leaving cert business. No I'm not having the craic, a genuine discussion needs to be had to whether we place higher emphasis on recruiting doctors and nurses or admin staff with the funding we give health. Also I've never heard of public staff numbers going down due to cuts.

That's a meaningless sentence. And you ain't starting a genuine discussion when you come out with bald statements completely out of context. I note you didn't engage on why NHS might spend less on administration as a proportion. If we are going to play silly stats I can confidently say Ireland spends a lot less than the NHS on admin in real numbers.

rebs23

Max Powers wrote: »

the bridge and train station has everything to do with the site and the private investment, you wouldn't build there unless there was decent access, in order for decent access to be in place, a pedestrian bridge is needed.

The point was only that commercial viability for the North Quays in relation to the retail element, offices and residential is likely to be severely tested over the next number of years and Government decisions will have little impact on that. So even if the bridge and station are moved which by all accounts they need to anyway it may not matter at all to the viability of the development.

Max Powers

rebs23 wrote: »

The point was only that commercial viability for the North Quays in relation to the retail element, offices and residential is likely to be severely tested over the next number of years and Government decisions will have little impact on that. So even if the bridge and station are moved which by all accounts they need to anyway it may not matter at all to the viability of the development.

there is plenty demand for residential, that has been covered extensively over the last few years and covid will not affect the need for housing. retail and office might be temporarily down but will return, the investors were confident, there is already well published locally interest in offices there. The investors have retail investments worldwide so they know what they are at on that front. The hotel apparently has an occupier too. Honestly rebs, you started of by questioning the need for pedestrian bridge and train station move, I don't think you know enough about the site, the investors, Waterford, the whole background of the site, what is planned and what has happened so far to be commenting in an informed manner.

rebs23

Max Powers wrote: »

there is plenty demand for residential, that has been covered extensively over the last few years and covid will not affect the need for housing. retail and office might be temporarily down but will return, the investors were confident, there is already well published locally interest in offices there. The investors have retail investments worldwide so they know what they are at on that front. The hotel apparently has an occupier too. Honestly rebs, you started of by questioning the need for pedestrian bridge and train station move, I don't think you know enough about the site, the investors, Waterford, the whole background of the site, what is planned and what has happened so far to be commenting in an informed manner.

That has been the problem in Ireland for the last number of years plenty of demand for residential but it is simply not commercially viable to construct. Look I won't comment on the rest and I wish the developers all the best and let's hope the Council get the funding for the bridges and I never intended to question the need for the bridge only to state that it won't be the Governments fault if this development doesn't go ahead in a thread with the title "How hostile will the new government be for Waterford" . It is a very difficult commercial investment environment at the moment. In most places in Ireland now we have significant amounts of vacant offices, retail units and centers and hotels that are not re-opening and other hotel projects that are mothballed.

Max Powers

rebs23 wrote: »

That has been the problem in Ireland for the last number of years plenty of demand for residential but it is simply not commercially viable to construct. Look I won't comment on the rest and I wish the developers all the best and let's hope the Council get the funding for the bridges and I never intended to question the need for the bridge only to state that it won't be the Governments fault if this development doesn't go ahead in a thread with the title "How hostile will the new government be for Waterford" . It is a very difficult commercial investment environment at the moment. In most places in Ireland now we have significant amounts of vacant offices, retail units and centers and hotels that are not re-opening and other hotel projects that are mothballed.

Agree, it has gotten a more difficult environment, Waterford is looking for the government to step up with money for bridge and train station , both needed and justified. The government can provide these badly needed things (no one else can) and kick start something bigger to boot.

Wanderer78

Max Powers wrote:

Agree, it has gotten a more difficult environment, Waterford is looking for the government to step up with money for bridge and train station , both needed and justified. The government can provide these badly needed things (no one else can) and kick start something bigger to boot.

Hopefully they stick to their current plan of borrowing to kick start things, and throw a few quid our way

Max Powers

Wanderer78 wrote: »

Hopefully they stick to their current plan of borrowing to kick start things, and throw a few quid our way

You'd hope so, with greens there investment in train station and bridge is right up there with their mantra, they have it in the PFG. put it this way, if they don't sort it, i won't be voting green next time and they have done well in Waterford recently, councillors, td, MEP. Quite a turnaround considering the candidate they put forward here for years who seemed determined to stifle Waterford.

BBM77

Max Powers wrote: »

there is plenty demand for residential, that has been covered extensively over the last few years and covid will not affect the need for housing. retail and office might be temporarily down but will return, the investors were confident, there is already well published locally interest in offices there. The investors have retail investments worldwide so they know what they are at on that front. The hotel apparently has an occupier too. Honestly rebs, you started of by questioning the need for pedestrian bridge and train station move, I don't think you know enough about the site, the investors, Waterford, the whole background of the site, what is planned and what has happened so far to be commenting in an informed manner.

Absolutely, he is talking about moving the bridge and when are plans going to drawn up. It’s a joke, he clearly has no clue about the project.

rebs23

BBM77 wrote: »

Absolutely, he is talking about moving the bridge and when are plans going to drawn up. It’s a joke, he clearly has no clue about the project.

I thought I said moving the station but anyway as you know there are planning application designs and then detailed designs which you would go to the market with to get tenders ready in preperation of receiving planning which hasn't happened yet. It gives a developer a better perspective of the cost of construction /delivery costs and allows them to go to clients with a fully costed product to sell.

BBM77

rebs23 wrote: »

I thought I said moving the station but anyway as you know there are planning application designs and then detailed designs which you would go to the market with to get tenders ready in preperation of receiving planning which hasn't happened yet. It gives a developer a better perspective of the cost of construction /delivery costs and allows them to go to clients with a fully costed product to sell.

Seriously fella just stop typing.

Stopitwillya

BBM77 wrote: »

Seriously fella just stop typing.

Don't feed the troll.

rebs23

BBM77 wrote: »

Seriously fella just stop typing.

Very sensitive about it all, the way it's being developed, etc. :rolleyes:

Max Powers

rebs23 wrote: »

Very sensitive about it all, the way it's being developed, etc. :rolleyes:

You are probably right about Waterford people being sensitive considering we in the South East don't get our fair share of jobs and investment and we are probably especially sensitive to ill informed people making ill informed comments

spaceCreated

micosoft wrote: »

That's a meaningless sentence. And you ain't starting a genuine discussion when you come out with bald statements completely out of context. I note you didn't engage on why NHS might spend less on administration as a proportion. If we are going to play silly stats I can confidently say Ireland spends a lot less than the NHS on admin in real numbers.

I addressed them in the same way they were put forward? As in I understand basic leaving cert business studies (maybe fixed cost is junior, who knows). Grand if you can confidently say it show me the numbers. If the UK is not a good comparison I'd be more than happy with comparisons to norway, finland or denmark. The first two having a much larger geographical area.

Whats funny is the whole fixed cost and the argument of a economies of scale, when Mary Hearney merged the Health Boards no jobs were cut and there are duplicate jobs throughout the HSE that will never be cut.

I'm more than willing to admit being wrong if anyone wants to throw some convincing figures at me.

Anyway this all gets away from the my original point which is there are 100s of ways to better fund the health services, some examples:

Cut Pavee Point funding 1.4 million annually (at least in 2016, no reason to assume this has changed and is generally what they're given)
Cut greyhound funding 16 million annually. I don't even think the sport should be legal given the mass slaughter of greyhound pups tbh.
Cut horse racing funding 67 million annually. I'm more than willing to sacrifice "a day at the races" so we can have another 1340 nurses (@ an average wage of 50k, would probably pump more money in to the economy directly as well)
I'd very quickly be charging any fast food corporation a higher tax rate, no reason why mcdonalds, burger king and kfc benefit from a low corporation tax rate for making our health crisis worse. What are they gonna do relocate their
restaurants for Ireland in China?
Some other things I would do, stop paying in to public sector pensions once a wage hits 55k, like you'd get your pension for the first 55k but not beyond that, unless you're in a high skilled, high demand job.


So Pavee Point, horse racing and greyound racing would cover another 1,688 nurses @ an average wage of 50k, your opinion on that should tell you where your priorities lie.

alta stare

rebs23 wrote: »

Very sensitive about it all, the way it's being developed, etc. :rolleyes:

No matter what you say you will be accused of trolling by those who may not like or agree with your opinion. It has been this way on this thread from the get go.

alta stare

alta stare wrote: »

No matter what you say you will be accused of trolling by those who may not like or agree with your opinion. It has been this way on this thread from the get go.

That lad said there isnt any detailed plans drawn up for it


They are done since late last year :pac:

(Cost something crazy for a print off aparently)

alta stare

[Deleted User] wrote: »

That lad said there isnt any detailed plans drawn up for it


They are done since late last year :pac:

(Cost something crazy for a print off aparently)

Perhaps he did but he was automatically labelled as a troll when in fact he may just be misinformed or ignorant to what is going on. I am not saying i agree with him i am just pointing out how being labelled a troll is the usual lazy argument trotted out here sometimes. It is becoming the norm.

People cant seem to have a debate with differing opinions without someone coming along and calling them a troll if they dont like what they are reading. It is absolute nonsense and predictable at this rate.

Stopitwillya

alta stare wrote: »

Perhaps he did but he was automatically labelled as a troll when in fact he may just be misinformed or ignorant to what is going on. I am not saying i agree with him i am just pointing out how being labelled a troll is the usual lazy argument trotted out here sometimes. It is becoming the norm.

People cant seem to have a debate with differing opinions without someone coming along and calling them a troll if they dont like what they are reading. It is absolute nonsense and predictable at this rate.

Maybe we should go onto a few of the cork city threads and argue against some of their future developments even though our posts would show we know jack **** about what we are talking about.
Or would that just be trolling?

alta stare

Stopitwillya wrote: »

Maybe we should go onto a few of the cork city threads and argue against some of their future developments even though our posts would show we know jack **** about what we are talking about.
Or would that just be trolling?

Not really. Give it a go and see how you get on.......

Edit: Just to add...being called a troll isn't just exclusive to this forum...it is site wide but it is becoming more and more frequent on the Waterford forum.

rebs23

Final post from the troll. I love seeing regeneration and development, it's my business. I am all for development and as a long time visitor to Waterford I wish the project all the best and never intended to insult Waterford or the project promoters who seem to be posting here. My only point in a thread entitled "how hostile will the new Government be for Waterford" (a bizarre title BTW) was it won't be the Government's fault if this project doesn't go ahead. There is a completely different commercial environment for these types of investments at the moment unfortunately. Many are being shelved all around the country and internationally. That is all.
BTW : there is a difference between drawings for planning and detailed designs for construction.

spaceCreated

rebs23 wrote: »

Final post from the troll. I love seeing regeneration and development, it's my business. I am all for development and as a long time visitor to Waterford I wish the project all the best and never intended to insult Waterford or the project promoters who seem to be posting here. My only point in a thread entitled "how hostile will the new Government be for Waterford" (a bizarre title BTW) was it won't be the Government's fault if this project doesn't go ahead. There is a completely different commercial environment for these types of investments at the moment unfortunately. Many are being shelved all around the country and internationally. That is all.
BTW : there is a difference between drawings for planning and detailed designs for construction.

The question of hostility isn't unprecedented after previous Governments made several cuts in funding in addition moving public service jobs that were previously done in Waterford to Cork, Kilkenny and Wexford (at least the latter 2 are somewhat close to Waterford and don't mean more losses for the region but still a sorry state of affairs). This may not be seen as hostile outside of Waterford but I think with even a shred of empathy you can understand why we would see a Government as hostile as opposed to uncaring, like its not so much a steamroller that happened to be going our direction merely one that was aimed at us deliberately to benefit other areas and regions

Deiseen

alta stare wrote: »

But why do we even need an airport in Waterford.....we dont.

Wexford, Kilkenny, Wicklow, Carlow, Tipp have no airport to speak yet they are doing ok. Why do some Waterford people obsess with the idea of us having an airport. We dont need an airport and that has been proven time and time again.

Even when the airport was operational it was too expensive to fly out of. I remember looking to book a flight to London from our airport and the cost was too high for a return flight. Travelling to and flying out of Dublin was cheaper than flying out of our own airport.

South East metrics are poor all round, not just Waterford.

Wexford and Kilkenny Councils have committed money towards Waterford airport as they see the importance.

alta stare

Deiseen wrote: »

South East metrics are poor all round, not just Waterford.

Wexford and Kilkenny Councils have committed money towards Waterford airport as they see the importance.

Some Waterford people have an inferiority complex which makes them think we are being shAt on from every government since the dawn of the state. There are worse off counties. We aint doing too bad to be fair.

We still don't need an airport. Dublin is 1hr 20 away with Cork about the same. No way we will ever see our airport take off in the way some of ye want it to.

Deiseen

alta stare wrote: »

Some Waterford people have an inferiority complex which makes them think we are being shAt on from every government since the dawn of the state. There are worse off counties. We aint doing too bad to be fair.

We still don't need an airport. Dublin is 1hr 20 away with Cork about the same. No way we will ever see our airport take off in the way some of ye want it to.

There might be worse off counties, but they are not counties with cities that are designated as drivers for entire regions. We are (supposedly).

If the airport takes off then great but I would be more than happy with Dublin Aerospace having a maintenance hub there and having the possibility to link to a small number of major cities across the world/Europe. This is particularly important to Ireland with the UK increasingly going their separate way. We used to be able to rely on them as a sort of bridge to the continent but they will increasingly become a barrier so it is vital that we build up our ports and airports at this time.

If that also allows us to have some passenger flights to some major European cities then great.

Deiseen

rebs23 wrote: »

I thought I said moving the station but anyway as you know there are planning application designs and then detailed designs which you would go to the market with to get tenders ready in preperation of receiving planning which hasn't happened yet. It gives a developer a better perspective of the cost of construction /delivery costs and allows them to go to clients with a fully costed product to sell.

https://irl.eu-supply.com/ctm/Supplier/PublicPurchase/164622/0/0?returnUrl=&b=ETENDERS_SIMPLE

Deiseen

CrabRevolution wrote: »

I've a similar view really. It makes me think of the arrangement of leagues in sport. Ask any team what the fairest, most logical league format is and they'll always give an answer that by sheer chance has the top league expanded down far enough to include them, but not include any teams below them.

Similarly a lot of people reckon centralising things in Dublin is wrong, and everything should be regionalised and subdivided into a more local level. Nothing objectively wrong with that, but it seems the drive for regionalising stops once it reaches their level, and they feel everything in a given region should be focused on one city.

I spend a lot of time in Wexford, and while obviously there's a connection from proximity to Waterford, I certainly don't get the same impression you see presented in this forum that Waterford is their regional capital and the focal point of their economy, education, transport etc. I've certainly never heard anyone say "Waterford should get X or Y as that would benefit us".

Now don't take that to mean I'm arguing against investment in Waterford or arguing that Waterford should or shouldn't get X Y or Z. My argument is simply that it's not right to use the entire populations of Wexford, Carlow, Kilkenny and South Tipperary as justification for building things in Waterford city.

The perception definitely isn't there. Maybe its a local rivalry thing with not wanting to admit that you depend on somewhere else or maybe Waterford just isn't strong enough, maybe it's both.

Despite what they might perceive, they definitely do depend on Waterford for Education, Health and Jobs. The traffic alone on the bridge every morning is proof of this.

The region needs a stronger Waterford, nowhere else in the region offers a viable location for a regional hospital, university, airport or significant industrial estate.