EDITORIAL: Vacant shops add a sadness to our Tipperary towns
Reflecting on a new report stating that the commercial vacancy rate in Tipperary is higher than the national average.
Walking through many towns around Tipperary, it is clear that there is a high vacancy rate for buildings in once thriving towns.
With shops like New Look now gone from Clonmel, there is even more emptiness felt around the town centre. These empty spaces are a sad sight to see as they make the town feel more run-down and empty, even less safe.
It’s hard to pinpoint why there are so many vacant shops in towns across Ireland, not just Tipperary. A reduction in people buying things in person and instead opting to buy online could be one reason for the many empty facades. Another reason could be due to the price of renting these retail units in towns and employing staff in these shops also.
It would be nice to see more government supports in helping open up extremely empty streets to the public once again by bringing in more shops to these spaces.
Empty shops give us a sense that the town centre is decaying in some way and not thriving like it once was. A new business opening in a town on the other hand gives the town a revival and some excitement.
Some also argue that instead of putting shops back into these empty spaces, they should be re-purposed to provide rental units in areas where there is a lack of accommodation.
This is a solution to the problem of low availability of rental units in a town but I feel it’s sad to see old buildings be turned into apartments in this instance.
When a lot of old shops are turning into offices and rental units, it’s sad to see part of the town never being revived again.
I feel limits should be put in place to ensure this doesn’t happen to every vacant retail unit that is for sale, to help preserve places for new businesses to move into when ready.
Preserving some of a town's history is important and changing these buildings from retail to other uses often have the chance to destroy this.