Should shoppers boycott Dunnes Stores over vacant unit in Tipperary?

People who aren’t happy with Dunnes Stores for leaving their former premises in Clonmel’s town centre idle for years should consider shopping elsewhere, other than the company’s stores at Oakville and Davis Road in the town.

That was the suggestion made by Cllr Tom Acheson at a meeting of Clonmel Borough District.

He said that Dunnes Stores is an extremely profitable company and they were doing huge business at two fantastic shops in Clonmel.

However, there were plenty of other supermarkets in which people could shop and if people did that it might “wake Dunnes up” in relation to their former premises in O’Connell Street.

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He suggested that people who took to Facebook and other forms of social media to give out about the town centre should think about where they shopped.

Cllr Acheson said that Dunnes and other big companies chose to sit on properties and let them inflate in price.
“It’s almost like buying gold for them,” he stated.

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It would be different if it was a small family-owned business that had closed down.

He claimed that the buildings previously occupied by Dunnes, Heatons and the Ulster Bank, and which were now vacant, were “dragging down the town centre”.

Last September, Cllr Acheson said that Dunnes Stores should “hang their heads in shame” for having allowed their former store in O’Connell Street to lie vacant for such a long time.

District Mayor Pat English stated that something needs to be done about this, as those companies couldn’t “sit idly by” while those buildings remained vacant.

Pressure needed to be put on the owners of those prime town centre properties so that they would become available again, said Cllr English.

He said that the Dunnes building in particular was an eyesore.

Supporting the comments made by her colleagues, Cllr Siobhán Ambrose asked for clarity on whether that building had been sold. The problem was that these were exceptionally large units and it was difficult to get businesses to take them over.

She also encouraged people to shop local in what she said was the “huge offering” of existing shops, and which needed to be supported.

The Dunnes Stores O’Connell Street branch closed nine years ago, while Heatons and the Ulster Bank have also closed their doors since then.