Overwhelming socio-economic ‘need’ in Tipperary Town ignored by Rural Regeneration Fund - Cllr Ryan

The Heritage Council and Partners’ innovative Collaborative Town Centre Health Check (CTCHC) Programme recently completed its Land Use Survey of Tipperary Town Centre.

This step (one of 15-Steps in the CTCHC assessment for Phase 1 of the programme) categorises the ‘use’ of town centre buildings, as well as establishing the percentage of vacant commercial and residential properties in Tipperary Town.

The Heritage Council and Tipperary town partners’ Ground Floor Land Use Survey (published in January 2022, undertaken in October and peer reviewed in November) showed:

28.2% commercial/retail vacancy rate (the normal commercial vacancy rate in Europe is 5%);

73 empty commercial buildings within the town centre;

12 empty residential buildings with the town centre;

A total of 85 empty buildings within the town centre;

The important survey data confirmed that Tipperary Town’s commercial/retail vacancy rate is the highest in the CTCHC Programme, in comparison to Ballina’s 19% retail vacancy rate (2019) and Sligo’s 18.4% retail vacancy rate (2020)1.

The CTCHC Programme currently has 15 towns enrolled in the programme with an additional 45 towns on a waiting list wanting to join. Their involvement very much depends on much-needed investment required under a commitment in the Programme for Government.

According to Ali Harvey, Founding Co-ordinator of the CTCHC Programme, “the target (ground floor) commercial/retail vacancy rate abroad is 5% (pre-Covid), e.g. Denmark is at 5% and the Netherlands is at 6.8%. The level of vacancy revealed in Tipperary is completely unheard of in a European context. Something must be done urgently to enable the reuse of these vacant buildings and sites. We urgently need a national enabling policy to address the ongoing conservation deficit in our historic town centres.’

Councillor Annemarie Ryan says "alarm bells in Ireland’s systems should go off at 11% but have failed to do so across many towns. Tipperary Town is one of these towns in urgent need of targeted interventions that address systemic long term vacancy and dereliction within historic town centres". 

Tipperary Town’s land use survey is part of the much wider Tipperary Town Centre Health Check (CTCHC) Summary Report, i.e. a data-based baseline, which brings together the results of all the land use, land ownership, footfall, consumer and business sector surveys that have been undertaken in the town over the last year.

This summary CTCHC report – the first ever baseline for Tipperary Town - will be launched by Malcolm Noonan TD, Minister of State for Heritage and Electoral Reform, in February 2022.

Last summer, Tipperary Town Task Force submitted plans under the RRDF to regenerate a large derelict heritage building in the town centre. The proposal is to provide a community and education training centre to combat early school leavers and to address intergenerational poverty and low educational attainment.

Nearly one in five people in Tipperary Town have no formal education or a primary education (19%) & third level education is low (12.4%) compared to county and state figures, 21 % & 28% respectively.2

This is at a time when a major new international study by the OECD reveals that young people in Ireland are the most educated in Europe.3

Despite evidence of this overwhelming socio-economic need coupled with unheard of vacancy rates, RRDF funding announced last Thursday, January 6, showed that Tipperary Town’s bid was unsuccessful.

This has raised the serious question of whether RRDF and URDF consider deprivation indices when deciding on funding allocations? Both Scotland and Northern Ireland use TSN (Targeting Social Need) when deciding the distribution and allocation of regeneration and heritage funding.

See Scotland’s Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD) 

Does Ireland apply such robust needs-based criteria when assessing regeneration funding?

A further analysis of the RRDF funding allocation shows that 84% of the fund went to constituencies with either a Minister, a Junior Minister or multiple Government TDs. 

"Tipperary Town has NO elected TD, Minister, and, or Junior Minister," added Cllr Ryan.