Borough Council must protect town centre
Dear Editor,
I congratulate Margaret Rossiter on her forthright article on the Showground development and the Borough Council’s response to it. The Borough proposes linking the Showground development with the town centre but doesn’t tell us how. The Chamber of Commerce declares that town centre businesses must meet the challenge of the Showground development but also fail to tell us how to meet this challenge. The developer states in his proposal that a bus service can link the town centre with the showground but does not offer any proposals for initiating such a service.
More importantly a planning application for phase two has been submitted. This second phase proposes drastically increasing the retail space of the site. If it goes ahead the second phase of this development will have the entire retail space of O’Connell street. What effect this would have on the town centre I leave to your imagination.
Mrs. Rossiter succinctly describes what ails Clonmel, namely the continuing neglect of the town centre by the powers that be. The Council in its own development plans and retail strategy has repeatedly stated that it recognises the importance of the town centre and proposes to protect the centre while continually granting planning permission for peripheral development.
Our association was founded because of the perceived neglect of the town centre. We have continually raised this issue at meetings with the Borough Council with little progress. Why does the Council continually contravene its own development strategy? Well one could be forgiven for being cynical and looking to the large development charges which go to the council whenever such applications are granted.
While continually paying lip service to the revitalisation of the town centre, the Council blatantly ignores it. Is it so difficult to allocate some resources to the most important part of Clonmel, its town centre?
Yours sincerely
John Morrissey
Secretary
Association of
Clonmel Traders
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Monday 21 May 2012
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