Re: Re: well what about the developments popping up in the shannonside ?

jimg is absolutely right.
There is either no civic pride or else a black hole of aesthetic ignorance in Limerick City Council.
There is an utter inability to appreciate what we have and the lack of imagination to aspire to something that isn’t ‘developer-lead’.

This sounds like an echo of the arguments that were being made in Dublin 30 or more years ago. Conservation and commerce can coexist. In fact, a city centre full of preserved and imaginatively reused buildings is a far more attractive place than any suburban shopping mall or ‘precinct’.
I have a dream!

Here’s a list of things I’d love to see happen in Limerick:
-all remaining Georgian buildings protected – no matter how insignificant or run down. If they’re tumbledown – get an enforecement order.

-the city council to have a coherent plan about the conservation of th historic city centre – not wetting their knickers at the thought of all the rates revenue they’ll collect when some developer comes along offering to demolish half of the city centre.

– grants for all owner of such buildings to renovate, restore and make them workable (replace white plastic windows with proper sashes)

-the roofline of the city to be established and good quality infill buildings in the vacant gaps (This has been achieved on the Belltable side of O’Connell st. – the red sandstone building fits in very well)

– proper pavements using native stone. We’ve really lowered the bar with that uneven grey concrete that constitutes the footpath of O’Connell st. – I’ve seen better croncrete work on silage pits.
The Bedford row/ Thomas st. paving is a bit ostentatious but at least it’s of good quality – despite all the clutter.

-All telegraph and electricity poles to be put underground.

– no more megaliths – i.e. buying and demolishing 4 or 5 houses and replacing them with one ugly office that we all know will be torn down again in 20 years time. Smaller buildings are more sustainable – they can be put to a multiplicity of uses whereas larger ones go obsolete very quickly. Look at Mt. Kennet. Also Harvey’s quay and the Mariot will hardly stand the test of time (the latter looks like something Sam Stevenson might have done on a bad day – all that reflective glass – very 1980s)