Re: Re: Smithfield, Dublin

Sure this is happening everywhere now. With impunity. The Planning Department such that it remains, has totally given up on even a semblance of enforcing the planning code in the city. It is the ultimate non-department.

This fantasy in plastic on Capel Street (an ACA)

However, we must ask the question. What can be done differently. The problem is so pervasive and most businesses would now see it as an intrusion to require planning to ‘upgrade’ their premises, particularly in the current environment.

No one can agree on good design, no one can agree on what colours works and what don’t, no one can control what premises are doing on a daily basis. In most instances painters etc will be in and out before anyone has even realised. No one can control the laminated plastic industry that has grown as fast as the traditional shopfront practitioners have declined.

The planning system is a also problem. Its far too complicated and expensive to get permission for shopfront changes. It should be simpler…but with clear rules as to what you can and cannot do. The City Council’s guidelines need to be revised and made more accessible. In this age of the ubiquitous web this stuff should be all online.