*A CGI impression of the development.
BUSINESS OWNERS in Ennis have admitted to being “absolutely shocked” by the size and scale of the building planned for Abbey Street car park as part of the Ennis 2040 strategy.
On Tuesday evening, members of the public got a look at the Abbey Street car park development for the first time.
There was a sense of shock in the air from many business owners including Edel Cassidy of The Snack Shack. “I’m so shocked at the size of it, all along we were led to believe that it was going to be smaller than what it is but it’s just an absolute monstrosity, a beautiful looking building I’ll give it that but it just makes no sense where they are putting it, it is crazy to think they are getting rid of the car spaces for that, I understand they want us to car free but we’re not ready to car free, it is just crazy and I can’t get my head around it,” she said.
Edel was adamant that if representatives of Ennis 2040 DAC showed up to a meeting organised by the Retailers of Ennis in May and co-operated in the interval that much of the anger that has manifested could have been avoided.
She explained, “I don’t consider it early days because it is a year since we had a public meeting here where they all refused to turn up because they had nothing to show us, a year later we are here, if they came back then and listened to what people wanted and what people thought there might not be as big of an outrage as to what we’re seeing”.
According to Edel there is a feeling among business representatives that they have been ignored by representatives of Ennis 2040 DAC. “the amount of times we’ve asked to speak to them and even in correspondence coming out they are just not talking to us, I asked tonight why they haven’t listened and they said ‘oh we had nothing to show you’, I really felt if they listened a small bit to us it would have been a big help. If you walk up through town the amount of shops that are empty, the amount of empty office space, we’ve two floors above us that have been empty for years but yet there are telling us they will be able to fill this spanking new one, it’s like a new shiny toy of course it will be filled first, could we not get the town looking like it’s lived in and clean it up, people are saying it is starting to get grubby looking which is because of the empty shops, I know they are privately owned as Mary Howard just pointed out to me but there has to be something done to incentivise filling these empty spots or just tidying them up, I don’t have the answers because I’m not in that job but there has to be something, they’ve over €2m spent on this already with consultation and consultation, imagine what €2m could have done to get the town tidy looking”.
From their busy premises in Abbey Street car park, The Snack Shack’s customer base have also voiced their disbelief that the plans will progress. “Our customers still can’t believe it is going ahead, it would severely affect our business, our business is from people who came into town and get their lunch and go, they might go to one other shop, the average customer on a weekday spends with us less than five or ten minutes with us but generally they’d spend twenty minutes to half an hour in town. The bus service will be a great addition to the town and will be of great help but it is not the answer, I can see during the summer that people will really use it but if you only want to run into town for ten or twenty minutes you’re not going to wait on a bus when you’ve done it the other way all your life”.
Officials in Clare County Council and Ennis 2040 DAC need to stop drawing parallels with the planned bus service for Ennis Town and what exists in Carlow already, Edel stressed. “They keep comparing us to Carlow’s bus service, Carlow is a college town, I’m sure there is an awful lot of students on those buses, we’re an older town, people do rely on their transport and my parents included, I don’t see either of my parents who are in their seventies willing to go on the bus to come up to town to get something, it’s not the town we’re living in at this moment in time, we’re living in an ageing town where we rely on the older people to keep the businesses afloat, we are a boutique town and people come to us because our shops are smaller, of course we’d love some big names shop in the town but that is not what Ennis”.
