'What was Councillor Ambrose talking about?' - The ordinary citizens of Clonmel are asking?

“What was Councillor Ambrose talking about?” This is a question which has been frequently asked by ordinary citizens of Clonmel within the last few weeks. It has been prompted by a report by Eamonn Wynne in this newspaper (issue September 29) under the title: “Complaints about Clonmel’s town centre ‘embarrassing’.”

The report covered a discussion which had taken place at a meeting of Clonmel Borough Council, on the subject of a document prepared by council official Michael Moroney, described as a document outlining a “strategy” for the revitalising of Clonmel’s town centre. This document, if accepted by the Borough Council, was drawn up to support an application for Government funding.

Councillor John Fitzgerald, while expressing his pride in Clonmel, is reported as saying that the town was getting a “bad press”. It was, he said, “very embarrassing when people complained about the dereliction and the number of premises that were vacant in Clonmel”. In this comment he was echoing the concerns of most ordinary citizens of the town.

Councillor Ambrose, however, took issue with Councillor Fitzgerald’s views, and there followed what the report described as a “heated clash” between the two. She said that the council was working very hard to “promote the town and encourage investment” and that “if anyone asked Councillor Fitzgerald what was happening in the town he should give them her number and she would tell them”.

This was the retort which has generated wide comment: “What was Councillor Ambrose talking about?”

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The subject under discussion at the council meeting was a document which purported to outline a “strategy” for rejuvenation of the old, historic, town of Clonmel.

There are now two Clonmels, one is a thriving town, industrialised, wealthy and located on the periphery of the old borough boundaries; the other is the traditional central business streets with peripheral residential streets. The development of the former has been totally facilitated by the council as planning authority. And it has been done to the complete neglect, some would say abandonment, of the old town. Which town was Councillor Ambrose talking about?

If she was talking about that suburban development on former farming land, of course, she was right, and worthy of the use of her telephone as a source of information and encouragement to potential investors. But if she was talking about the town centre, it seems to me there are few citizens who would share her views.

The facts are there has been a revolution in marketing and merchandising with the development of the shopping malls. (Interestingly, these are now rapidly closing in the land of their birth - the USA). To combat that development, many cities and towns in the EC have upgraded, both in the quality of trading, presentation and the environment; all of which costs money.

The centre towns were, and still are, of buying and selling, but socially and historically, they were and still are, places where people casually met, conversed, had a coffee, nice meals, shopped, went to the cinema, window-shopped, congregated.
In Clonmel town centre, all of these business and social activities are still available and they are available in a background which still retains much of its vernacular architecture, its attractive shopfronts and signwriting, its interesting medieval lanes, its proximity to the Suir and the Comeragh foothills. All it needs is a parallel investment similar to that which the council has invested in its suburban development.

So what practically has the council done to meet that obligation? Has it facilitated upgrading? Has there been any encouragement for maximising space by over-shop development? Have any concessions been made on rates in acknowledgement of physical improvement of premises, or is this (upgrading) work still subjected to punishing increases in valuation?

What has the council done for Clonmel?

Well it has, within the last two decades, commissioned two very expensive consultative studies. There may even be a third going back to the 1990s.

And now we have a strategy?