The two major blights in Clonmel, Tipperary's largest town, 'need to be addressed'

The publication of the Town Centre First Clonmel Action Plan, which is “about making the town centre a better place to live, work and visit and positioning Clonmel for the future as a more attractive, vibrant and resilient town”, has been welcomed by the town’s first citizen.

Speaking at a meeting of Clonmel Borough District, Pat English, District Mayor, said the key elements of the plan would deal with dereliction, help reinvigorate the local economy and celebrate the town’s heritage. If government funding could be secured it would make a big difference to the town, he said.

Michael Moroney, Tipperary County Council’s Project Regeneration and Development Officer, who presented the plan to the meeting, stated that all of its analysis and research fed into three main themes - to provide an attractive town centre that would be a good public space; make the town centre active from a tourism and economic point of view, while making use of vacant buildings and promoting it from an arts, culture and sporting point of view; and making the town centre more accessible to support a vibrant town centre.

Mr Moroney said that a high level of objective and vision for the document had been set out. It represented a way forward for the town centre and builds on an amount of work and on projects that have been carried out already, with a series of actions that were ambitious and achievable.

He acknowledged that town centre vacancies represented a significant issue and a significant challenge.

He stated that the “10 Minute Town” concept was about creating connected communities within a ten-minute walk of the Main Guard, which sits at the epicentre of Clonmel town.

This concept understands how neighbourhoods work and how a more compact and permeable urban form can provide high quality and safe links to public transport, shops, services, green spaces and to other neighbourhoods, which will reduce the need to travel and therefore reduce carbon emissions.

Mr Moroney said the council couldn’t do it all on its own. The action plan would require a collaborative public-private partnership, as well as involvement from the community and voluntary sectors.

It wasn’t a static plan. It would be refined as circumstances evolved and changed, and progress could be examined on a biannual basis.

Cllr Siobhán Ambrose said the document was about regenerating and transforming Clonmel. It would include the upgrade of the streets, the completion of the redevelopment of Kickham Barracks, the construction of a new bridge from the former Clonmel Arms Hotel site to Suir Island, upgrading the West Gate and the creation of the Bulmers visitor centre at Dowd’s Lane.

“This has been worked on for years and following the very difficult decision to approve the adoption of the council budget, we have the funding and are ready to apply for capital (Government) funding.”

Cllr Ambrose said you could be talking about up to €100 million for Clonmel alone, and it would need match funding from the council.

Cllr Richie Molloy said the one question they were asked “morning, noon and night” was what was happening with the town centre. There was a lot happening, including the development of the Kickham Barracks plaza, the upgrade of the lanes and the development of cycle lanes.

But it was hard to get that across to the public when they saw dereliction as well.

He said that if people took the time to look at this document they would see it was very comprehensive and it showed how the rates were being spent. There had been a lot of activity in the town and hopefully they would see more in 2023.

Cllr John FitzGerald welcomed the projects that had been talked about for some time. The town was made up of buildings that were all privately-owned and the two big blights, the former Clonmel Arms Hotel and Market Place, would have to be addressed.

His concern was that only a tax incentive would work for people doing up overhead properties in privately-owned buildings. People didn’t want a loan; they wanted to build into the buildings’ future by providing something that could be a succession for family members.

“People should be queuing up to avail of schemes rather than the council approaching them”, he said.