Cap on retail space
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Choice, exactly. Sw – fair enough you like shopping for furniture in the “crappy shops” on Capel Street or wherever, thats perfectly fine lots of others do, but just because you like it and don’t like larger stores like IKEA is no reason to deny these larger stores to other people who do. Heres an idea, if you don’t like these types of stores then don’t shop in them!
I have to say there seems to be more scaremongering going on here than at your average residents association meeting.
Personally I don’t buy this argument that the city centre will be decimated by these out of town superstores, I think its a lot of rubbish to be honest.Firstly we already have them, they’re just a bit smaller than elsewhere.
Secondly, I seem to remember when out of town shopping centres like Blanchardstown, Liffey Valley etc were going to destroy the city centre. That obviously hasn’t happened, in fact the city centre is more unbearably crowded than ever now.
and thirdly, say the cap is lifted (we’re only talking about non-grocery type operations here since thats all thats being proposed – thats Wal Mart out even if for some reason they did want to open in a tiny market like Ireland) what are we looking at getting through planning? 3 maybe 4 stores of a size significantly bigger than the cap allows at present and all in the furniture, DIY, and maybe electrical goods sectors. How in gods name is that going to make a wasteland of the city centre? (and we’re only talking about Dublin here since nowhere else is big enough to warrant larger stores – Cork is very marginal).
Lads, give our planners some credit, I know they are a bit challenged but does anyone actually believe that if the cap is lifted it’d mean dozens of enormous superstores dotting the suburbs of our major cities? – not too likely – as I said we’d be looking at 3 or 4 stores tops, and slightly more choice for the consumer.
Opinions, anyone?
Should have added, since this is the core of my point and this thread seems to have gone off on an IKEA related tangent which I’m not particularly interested in, basically I have a problem with across the board bans such as this retail cap. I believe each project should be judged on their own merits – isn’t that why we have a planning system in the first place? Government interfering with the process such as this ban really gets on my nerves.
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
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.
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