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Column Dependence on out-of-town shopping complexes destroys community life

The ‘solution’ of building more housing and expecting people to commute to out-of-town shopping complexes is detrimental to local community life.

A STRONG RETAIL sector is at the heart of every thriving community. A prosperous town centre creates jobs, promotes a shared social life, and is a source of pride for all residents. Healthy retail is the life blood of rural and urban villages all across Ireland.

Unfortunately, the retail sector in many of our towns and villages is impoverished and sickly. Empty retail units on our high streets and in our shopping centres are a blemish on too many of our town centres. A recent CBRE survey showed that five out of nine towns still suffer from double digit levels of ground floor vacancy on their high streets.

My own area, Ballymun, is an example of the challenges that towns all over Ireland are facing to keep retail in the community. Tesco, the anchor store in the local shopping centre, will close its doors for the last time this weekend. This move throws the future of the shopping centre into doubt, and will have serious implications for the residents of Ballymun, who have submitted a petition with 7,500 signatures to Dublin City Council calling for the maintaining of retail services in Ballymun. Local Councils all across Ireland need to take action to safeguard retail in the community.

Large, high-profile empty units are devastating for a community. They are an eyesore for residents and, even more damagingly, they may act as a deterrent for other businesses to set up in the area. Lack of local amenities hurts residents, especially older people and those without cars, who may be unable to travel elsewhere to shop.

Athlone is a town which is particularly afflicted by empty retail units. The CBRE survey found a 21.6% ground floor vacancy rate on the high street. The Midlands Gateway Chamber has been working to attract large employers and multinationals to the area, but more needs to be done to support SMEs, which are the businesses that will occupy high street locations.

Tackling rates

One concrete way in which we can address the issue of empty units is by tackling rates. Rates are too high in many areas, especially when there are so many empty units. At a recent public meeting in Ballymun, Cllr Paul McAuliffe called for Councils to be given the power to set rates for their wards. Often rates are set without consideration for the specific areas in which they will apply. Giving Councils the power to set rates would allow them to take into account the particularities of their area, and provide them with a tool which they could use to help fill empty units.

Councils do at the moment, however, have powers which they can use to tackle empty units and attract businesses. Good planning and improving how Councils plan for our towns and villages is essential. This is an area on which the Council has failed in the past in Ballymun, where housing has often been built without due consideration being given to retail, transport and leisure services for residents. Both urban and rural developments need to be planned with the needs of residents in mind.

Maintain retail services in our communities

The importance of image, and of ensuring that the built environment of towns and villages looks good, cannot be underestimated. Initiatives such as Tidy Towns help to promote a good image for communities. Tidy Towns committees in towns such as Westport and Clonakilty have helped to transform these environs, and make these places more desirable for businesses to locate. Councils can take practical steps to improve the image of their areas, and to maintain a high standard for all developments.

Ballymun was promised a shopping centre by Dublin City Council. This promise must be kept. In a competitive economic environment we have to fight to maintain retail services in our communities.

The solution of building more housing, and expecting people to commute to out-of-town shopping complexes is detrimental to life in the community and unfairly disadvantages people like the elderly, who need access to local amenities. In towns and villages across Ireland we have to fight to keep retail services in the community. We need incentives for new businesses and support for existing ones. We need to listen to the needs of shoppers and residents, who want local services, who want local jobs, and who want local retail.

Laura Reid is a Fianna Fáil Local Election candidate running in the Whitehall-Ballymun ward in North Dublin. She grew up in Santry and has served as a Fianna Fáil Local Area Rep in Dublin North East. Laura is a graduate of European Business and French (DCU and Reims Management School, France) and holds a Masters in International Relations (DCU). She is currently a sales manager for a large department store in Dublin.  

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    Mute Ed
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    May 19th 2021, 9:48 AM

    Unbeknownst? Time for these companies to be hammered for such “errors”.

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    Mute John Murphy
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    May 19th 2021, 10:20 AM

    @Ed: That’s usually the case in leaks. The company often gets alerted by people who suffered from the leak a year or so after the fact.
    BTW this site is a handy way to search the lists of publicly known leaks: https://haveibeenpwned.com/

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    Mute Eugene Norman
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    May 19th 2021, 2:47 PM

    @John Murphy: my iPhone told me I was owned when I tried to log into a website the other day and suggested I change the password there. A government website as well but not in Ireland.

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    Mute SteveBuzzard
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    May 19th 2021, 10:19 AM

    “700,000 documents dating from 2014 to 2017 were stored in the folder, including some passports, drivers’ licenses and compliance-related forms”

    So nothing is private any more, all our private information is now floating around cyber space freely available to criminals.
    Will anybody be held to account?? will customers be compensated?? Joke of a country, can do nothing right. Those responsible should be face criminal charges.

    113
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    Mute Eugene Norman
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    May 19th 2021, 2:48 PM

    @SteveBuzzard: what’s the “country” got to do with a private company. They should have deleted most of this info though, according to GDPR rules.

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    Mute Phil Redmond
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    May 19th 2021, 3:20 PM

    @Eugene Norman: Not true. GDPR does not put any time scale on how long companies have to hold data. The Data Protection Act requires them to delete it 7 years after the end of the relationship with the individual so actually very little of it should have been deleted

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    Mute Franky Jefferson
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    May 19th 2021, 10:14 AM

    I thought they are supposed to delete verification documents after a certain period… Not keep them.

    Prosecutions? I imagine not of course.

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    Mute Peter Cavey
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    May 19th 2021, 10:22 AM

    @Franky Jefferson: yeah, all customer data can only be stored for a maximum of 6 months.

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    Mute Phil Redmond
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    May 19th 2021, 10:28 AM

    @Peter Cavey: Incorrect. GDPR does not put a time frame how long companies can hold you’re data. The Data Protection Act requires companies to delete data after 7 years

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    Mute M. Murphy
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    May 19th 2021, 2:26 PM

    @Peter Cavey: Incorrect. Best not comment without correct facts

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    Mute Eugene Norman
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    May 19th 2021, 3:02 PM

    @M. Murphy: People do be getting very heated about GDPR.

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    Mute Marty Lawless
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    May 19th 2021, 9:45 AM

    Was it leaky Leo

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    Mute Biscuits Patinkin
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    May 21st 2021, 9:32 AM

    @Marty Lawless: who?? Oh.. you mean Leako Varadkar

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    Mute D. Memery
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    May 19th 2021, 10:20 AM

    The statement that there is no evidence that the data was accessed rings false when you consider it was an external, independent company that found the data publicly accessible. Unless the server itself was publicly available on the cloud, a serious data security error in of itself, the data had to be accessed for it to have become publicly available.

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    Mute SteveBuzzard
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    May 19th 2021, 10:20 AM

    “700,000 documents dating from 2014 to 2017 were stored in the folder, including some passports, drivers’ licenses and compliance-related forms”

    So nothing is private any more, all our private information is now floating around cyber space freely available to criminals.
    Will anybody be held to account?? will customers be compensated?? Joke of a country, can do nothing right. Those responsible should face criminal charges.

    13
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    Mute Phil Redmond
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    May 19th 2021, 10:38 AM

    @SteveBuzzard: Oh FFS don’t be so dramatic. Yes they will be held accountable. The company will be investigated and sanctioned by the Central Bank and the Data Protection Commissioner. As for compensation unless there is evidence that anyone has suffered a loss or damage as a result of the leak then no they will not be compensated as there is no loss or damage to be compensated for

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    Mute Dav Nagle
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    May 19th 2021, 10:46 AM

    The more info one has to provide the greater the leak! Convoluted EU nonsensical process management at its finest.

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    Mute Jim O Brien Tech
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    May 19th 2021, 1:45 PM

    Did you purposely forget to mention the Irish times to plug our own.

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