Cap on retail space

I hope the restriction stays in place. The cap is probably all that stands in the way of WalMart (for example) entry to Ireland. It has been my experience that huge stores squeeze out all the smaller stores which leads to less consumer choice and the death of local shopping. Mega stores also tend to be car based which leads to social exclusion as you need private transport to access the stores. City divides into haves and have nots, downtown and public transport become no go areas. This has all been well documented and I find it hard that any planning department would consider allowing the cap be removed.

Ikea is the one that is often used as an example, as they claim their business model is dependant on the large store size. And I accept there is a real need for better quality cheap furniture (as a walk down capel street area will show). However there are smaller Ikea stores in Netherlands and Germany that return a good profit, so I think Ikea are just being manipulative and their bluff should be called. They know they can split their stock into two – bathroom + kitchen / livingroom + and all other, and they have no real intention of going north of the border.

B & Q want to open dozens of new stores in Ireland as soon as the size restriction is lifted, they are a great business model but they will take a huge amount of money out of the country.

having lived in england for a while, god i hope the restriction stays in place.

Everytime the plan for lifting the ban is mentioned the word “Ikea” also pops up – how sad and pathetic are we that we will change our spatial/planning guidelines on a national basis just to satiate our slavish devotion to some brandname?!? There has to better reasons for a change that could potentially turn the country into one vile suburban edge city.

Wallmart etc may offer cheap prices, but there comes a cost – the total crushing of all local business, and the redundancy of the town centre – and once this is accomplished – what’s there to stop the large retailer from jacking up the prices – where else you gonna shop???

We all laud the German retailers for their cheaper prices, but how much produce do they actually source in this country? It’s hardly a good thing to have only menial minimum-wage jobs as the only contribution to a country’s economy.
Dunnes et al may cost more – but provide secure pensionable jobs with benefits, and invest in our economy in other ways too.

Which ties in nicely with the latest effort at rezoning the last farmland in North Dublin that’s anyway close to the population, for housing. Oops sorry I mean theme park.
We can import our factory farmed veg from the Dutch and Germans, not to mention airfreight from Kenya and Venezuela of course. And wonder what happened to Irish farming industry.
Spatial planning my arse.

The ban should stay in place – there is more than enough ‘shopping experiences’ outside of Dublin city, and indeed around the country adding to congestion outside towns and car dependancy, also creating environmental problems.
And the best public transport in the world to these places is pointless, as people require cars to load up their purchases.
A plethora of such stores leads to the draining of resources from city & town centres.
It would appear that IKEA are the only ones that need the large retail space – under no circumstances should legislation be passed to satisfy a single private interest.

Then again if IKEA agreed to a smaller premises, they’d still have hoards of cars going to it anyway…
But what Tesco propose – large out of town ‘experiences’ – under no circumstances should these be allowed in, there are more than enough brownfield sites in towns across the country to accomodate moderate stores.
Large developments out of town also leads to developers scrambling over each other to build more sprawling housing close to them.

Originally posted by Graham Hickey
It would appear that IKEA are the only ones that need the large retail space – under no circumstances should legislation be passed to satisfy a single private interest.

The change would not be to satisfy IKEA’s private interest but to meet the needs of Irish consumers. IKEA offer a level of quality, design and value that is not matched in Ireland today. Irish retailers and the Irish public would all benefit from seeing how things can be done.

WalMart, on the other hand, I don’t want to see for all the reasons you mentioned. Can we have one and not the other?

ikea could operate in stores under the cap limit, surely they’re just pushing their luck.

the idea that ikeas “quality, design and value” would somehow benefit irish businesses is ludicrous. hows about i show you how its done while i undermine your trade and run you into the ground? not the way forward methinks. i hope the government feels the same way

Originally posted by sw101
ikea could operate in stores under the cap limit, surely they’re just pushing their luck.

I’d rather have an IKEA that stocked their full range, had plenty of display space and was comfortable to navigate.

the idea that ikeas “quality, design and value” would somehow benefit irish businesses is ludicrous.

Why? This is the whole theory behind competitive markets. Irish businesses either compete with IKEA on these points, find some other competitve advantage (e.g. bespoke furniture) or get out of the business.

I have visited perhaps every furniture store in Dublin and Navan over the last year and it has been a miserable experience (there have been odd pockets of excellence, however). I have previously lived in several countries with IKEA stores and there is no comparison. As consumers, we are just hurting ourselves by not allowing a company operating to IKEA’s standards to locate here.

I think that Irish people need to wise up to the benefits of design, then the shops will begin to notice. As for IKEA, they do offer mass produced flatpack ‘designed’ goods, but I have heard that the quality has suffered recently.

Habitat is owned by IKEA – go buy something overpirced there if so desperate to experience IKEA.

The single notion of changing our laws to allow one shop to come to Ireland is so… words escape me. That single act would do more to hurt our reputation abroad than any “Paddy” joke. Why is the solution up to us to find? If IKEA want to come here so bad – why don’t THEY find a compromise. McDonalds don’t have the same menu world wide – they accommodate the country they’re in, not force them to change their laws.

word

Originally posted by Aierlan

I’d rather have an IKEA that stocked their full range, had plenty of display space and was comfortable to navigate,………………..I have visited perhaps every furniture store in Dublin and Navan over the last year and it has been a miserable experience …………………… As consumers, we are just hurting ourselves by not allowing a company operating to IKEA’s standards to locate here.

go back there then. if you’re willing to sacrifice irish produce and labor for a bit of cheap tat then you’re clearly not thinking of the spirit of the irish. my solution would be for irelands workforce of competent and quality driven individuals (not Iarnrod Eireann employees) being put to use producing quality flat packed well designed furniture here, then flood the dutch and german markets and make them all feel bad about themselves, and unemployed, then watch them all flood over here to buy our quality produce and cry because we’re so good. this is a rambling arguement because the whole thread is a bit directionless. IKEA want to come here on there own terms and fuck with our lifestyle as much as anything else. i like going to every crappy shop on capel street looking for that perfect hand-honed piece for my gaff. i dont want some stern yet smiling kraut telling me which of his 3500 tables is my favourite. balls to that. heres to village shops and overpriced wobbly stools. we have to make a little stand here not to surrender ourselves to european ideals because it suits them, and them alone.

Eh, wouldn’t it be nice to have the choice……………

eh, no.

we’re all consumers and as a majority we would opt for the giant showroom of tat. thereby undermining the wee cobbled together spots where originality means something (hemp store capel street for example, that place gets sold from stoner to stoner every few months, when it was the fair trade shop i got a stunning handmade walnut presentation case for a song, one of a kind and forever mine).

when this happens continually the smaller shops get pushed out and people who run these businesses either opt toward dole queues or get jobs in mr. giant retail 10,000sq m shop. thereby redistributing basic wages or social welfare while money gets pumped straight out of the country. where are we then? we could go to ikea or habitat for our stuff, depending on how posh we are and our skills with a screwdriver. not a choice i’d be happy making

but not everybody wants twee pine furniture – which seems to be the mass produced Irish stuff.

Learn to love Europe – it’s not that bad

These arguments are very similar to what went on in Britain a few years ago with the “save the highstreet” campaigns. Guess what? The highstreet died. If you find the pleasurable drive to Liffey Valley, and the ‘soulful’ day browsing the many varied indigenous shops there an ideal day out – then let IKEA run amok here – cos that’s they way things are going to be… I think I prefer the concept of comparison shopping in town.
It’s a question of LA versus San Francisco.

its not an issue of whether or not we accept europe. thats been done and done in the 70’s or so i’ve been told about in history books. its about rejecting corporate statutes and demands, their gain is our loss. maybe not architects who would love to specify 300 identical chairs which could then be picked up by mr. van man from a town-sized shop outside tallaght, but working class people and the country and its economy as whole.

my point is this, and you’re welcome to disagree. i dont believe ikea should be allowed to dictate terms to the irish government. what they are doing is effectively extorting privileges and exemptions by convincing people we will be losing out by their abcense. i believe we would be losing out as a country if we allow their presence under their terms

you beat me dallas. my last post was a response to the comments of rory w.

and dallas, you’re damn right

Right on Brother!

i never intend to shop in ikea dont worry. i’m not arguing from a personal point of view, but from the point of view of whats good for our economy and workers.

i agree that each proposal should be granted hearing based on its merits, i’m currently trying to get planning for over 40 apartments on land zoned for 8 semi-d’s, so i understand development pressure and where it leads to.

i dont agree with set caps either, but planners wouldnt have the cop on or balls to limit each individual proposal sensibly without some set control level. if there is sufficient support is gathered for an 8500sq m proposal “or whatever” from political and commercial sides, then the cap will be out the window like a dead smelly fish two days after good friday.

its not the principal i’m opposed to but the arm bending that goes on to the achievement of planning for such stores. nobody stands up for whats been set as good practice when money comes into it. the scaremongering i see is that people are being told we NEED these stores or we’ll lose out. as you say blain we already have them, but the new ones want more more more. its corporate greed and i think unhealthy.

its not that i “don’t like larger stores like IKEA”, its that i feel they may not be suited to our little island on the massive scale they intend to appear at. 4 0r 5 stores “or whatever” is exactly what i dont want in our capitals outer suburbs. i dont want to end up living on an island of suburbia and mass commercialism. have you seen ‘one hour photo’? terrifying

Blain – you mention Cork – which is a good example of the effect of out of town shopping. Currently Cork City Centre has a pretty large market share of comparison shopping for it’s catchment area (75% +) – but with the granting of permission for Mahon Point to be built they reckon the city centre will lose at least 15% of it’s share. And this is at a time when planners are trying to get more people back into Cork city centre! So when you ask to “give our planners some credit” I have to look around me, and take that with a pinch of salt. The right hand frequently does not know what the left hand is doing.

mahon point is a disgrace. mahon neither needs it or wants it. shopping centres in douglas have reduced it to a little village surrounded by commerce driven monstrosities a la the douglas court s.c, douglas village s. c(which is currently looking for planning to expand and heighten), and watergold building etc. all out of character and adversely affecting the surrounds

Main problem there is the city boundary is just before the commercial core – and rates hungry County Council exploit that fact and cannibalise the City Council.

Interesting counter argument is France, where hypermarkets exist outside bustling town centre, same in Netherlands, Germany and Sweden.

Why oh why do we always have to compare ourselves to the UK???

It’s a matter of choice and choice is healthy. If people want Scandanavian and trendy style furtniture, let them have IKEA, no one is forced to shop there!!!

BTW
I was in Ikea in Brent Cross last Tuesday evening on a week’s visit to London, I won’t be back…. Should have seen the queues on a Tuesday night at 9PM!!!! The stuff has gone downmarket terribly and a Swedish friend of mine says it is very down market in Sweden!!

But at least they and the rest of Europe have it!

Exactly my point on loving europe – the two styles can coexist quite happily hypermarkets for the occasional “big shop” and then go to your local shops for the day to day goods. If you want a loaf of bread you don’t drive to your nearest tesco, you go to your local shops!

If things are planned properly hypermarkets can coexist quite merrily – lets face it the state could handle a few. As was previously mentioned its only the non-food sector that’s being targeted at the moment – what we need to ensure is that the IKEA over here charges the same as continental europe – the UK guys are being screwed price wise.

We have a perception in this country that we are the poor downtrodden micks who need protection from everything – answer we don’t. Competition is deparately needed in this market in practically every area. When Intel came in did we say “ah no these guys will corner all the IT skills in the Irish market” no. Why is Blanchardstown Lidl now the busiest in europe? Should wwe stop guinness domitating the stout market? We should be more like Continental europe and less like the UK (who is now America’s bitch – anyway)

Give me Carrefore! Give me IKEA! Adapt or die folks

Take a trip tp any French big town or city, I don’t see what all the fuss is about……..

It’s our Dev era protectionist view of ourselves

European towns keep getting mentioned – are these the same centralised well planned European towns where people all live in densely built areas and shop in the local produce markets??? This is suburban sprawl lucan-style Ireland – which is more akin to UK and USA – we compare to the UK because that’s precisely what we resemble the most. Same disasterous public transport etc…

these extra-urban centres of shopping paradise that are being created are catering for families in big cars who want to spend their weekends furnishing their new semi-d’s out in nowhere land alongside 5000 identical semi-d’s. this isnt a culture that should be promoted, where people are brought out of the city and in a sense isolated from the city society they by rights belong to. dallas is right in mentioning the disparity between places like rotterdam and brussels, and the megalopolis’ that are london or new york. As in rotterdam, where people are packed in but live in proper communities and are allowed to filter into and through these dense areas, the sense of place in society is retained without resorting to mass sprawl to increase the mass of that population. its for this reason i believe the docklands and heuston area developments should be promoted and the smithfield regeneration and the like can accommodate peoples movement and use of the city centre and surrounds. steps like this would bring us closer to a dublin i would be happier living in, and thats just a personal opinion. its then possible to bitch and whinge about infrastructure luas blah blah, but thats a different matter altogether.

The out of town developments hav’nt damaged Dublin city centre but they have dramatically affected it.
In the late 80s, my parents could’nt get out of Arnotts onto Henry St during the Christmas period, the street was so full of people that nobody could move – literally – there were pockets of air on the st where some could move a few feet, and Gardai were on-site directing pedestrians.

Never would this happen today, and thats even with the population explosion around the city.
In Dublin’s case – the lifting of the ban will only serve to aid the establishment of sprawling car dependant machines of stores that will encourage further housing, even more clogged M50 lanes, even more pollution – overall – even more fringe development.
Keeping stores small makes such major schemes uneconomical out in the wilds.

I remember on Pat Kenny’s prog about a year ago – a contributer from the UK who had researched such large stores in comparison with smaller out-of-towns there and in the US, said that in nearly every case where the large ones developed they had drained the city centres damaging trade.

Someone asked earlier is it possible to legislate for specific stores such as IKEA – it is.
A stipulation of for example ‘flat-packed domestic furnishing suppliers’ can be made, hence only such stores can exceed the cap.

If they were to be legislated for the planning guidelines should stipulate that they are built as single entities and not with a Liffey Valley attached to them. Should reduce any ‘new town centre’ effect.

Interesting one this. On the subject of corporations adapting their business models to suit the current planning climate: both Sainsbury’s and Tesco now seem to have corners the small high street supermarket market with their ‘Local’ and ‘Metro’ brands. I guess if theban stays in force and these stores really want to open in Ireland they will adapt to suit.

Well, Ikea have got their go-ahead, We’ll soon see what the effect is. But the threat of not coming at all, if they don’t get the dimensions and location they want is becoming a familiar refrain. Big sprawling shops and shopping-centres have realized how desperately local authorities want development and will, (and are doing) attempt to use blackmail to get the conditions they want. “If we don’t get the location near the ring-road, don’t get the size we require, we walk and go to the next town”.I’d imagine even the most well-intentioned councils may crumble under that pressure, especially when you consider the population at large don’t seem to be interested in any ‘protect the town centre’ cry. Look at the abuse handed to the councillors who voted against the M&S in the industrial park in Tralee.