Waterford - a busier City than you might think!

Summer Solstice

So the longest day of the year has now passed us by and from now on the days start to get much shorter and we shall start to notice it is getting darker much earlier in the evening – just how depressing is that thought!

Still on the plus side there is much to look forward to this summer in and around Waterford City and County. I would urge everyone to actually seek out the many wonderful events and activities that have been scheduled for our entertainment and for the entertainment of the thousands of visitors we expect to see over the rest of the Summer months. And remember that many of these events and activities are actually free to attend – now if that has not lifted your spirits’ I do not know what will.

Starting this weekend is the return of the very successful Summer In The City programme of events. We will see bands and tribute acts returning to the stage in John Robert’s Square every Friday evening and every Saturday afternoon. In addition there will be family fun and kiddie orientated entertainment from 12:30 on Saturday until 14:30. ArtBeat will also be performing with live acts across the City and will be delivering their usual cutting edge blend of new local musical talent. ALL of these events are free to attend courtesy of Waterford Council and Waterford Business Group. This is the second year of Summer In The City and the programme continues to grow in popularity and is something that we all should and need to start supporting.

There can be no more excuses that the City Centre has “nothing on” as this programme of 12 weeks of  entertainment starts off this Friday and Saturday with Suzie Q and Thank Funk and runs right through until Saturday 12^th September.

A City In Bloom.

You may also have noticed that the City Centre is beginning to look “Blooming Marvellous” as more and more City Centre shops and business from the Train Station to The Quay to John Robert’s Square to Michael Street to Arundel Square start to display wonderfully colourful hanging baskets and flower boxes. This voluntary initiative started last year with the Council and Waterford Business Group and is beginning to spread right across the City Centre and in time will no doubt include Ferrybank as well. This five year project will grow exponentially year on year and we would like to believe that by the end of year five every single business in the City will partake in the initiative. The cost is minimal, the initiative supports local businesses and best of all, the entire City looks fantastic to citizens and visitors alike.

City In Bloom makes us stand out from the crowd and let us not forget that colour and flowers make people smile and the colourful displays will also make people look up at a our wonderful buildings and architecture.

But the City In Bloom needs everyone to play their part and we must be encouraging people to keep their City clean and tidy, keep their City void of dog poop and ensure that we all, where possible, encourage shops and businesses to participate in City In Bloom. There is still time for business to get involved and they only have to ask a member of the Waterford Business Group for information.

As our Summer rolls on we can look forward to Day Tripper with its blend of old and new music and this year we can all relax with a glass of Red Red Wine. The Tramore Promenade Festival in early July promises to deliver a whole host of exciting events and activities. Spraoi comes around every year at the end of July beginning of August and the 2015 event promises to bring a wonderful array of diverse acts back to Waterford City once again. The annual Harvest Festival comes to us early in September when we can celebrate all things foodie and look forward to sampling some of the best our local food producers can provide.

And outside of the events there are many, many more local events taking place such as the Boobs and Balls Solas Centre motorcycle show, National Heritage Week, Dunmore East Bluegrass Festival, Robert Boyle Summer School and much, much more.

For those feeling a little more energetic you can run in the Viking Marathon or cycle in the Sean Kelly Tour of Waterford or partake in the Comeraghs Wild Festival.

We so often hear and read about other about other towns and cities being much, much busier than Waterford and perhaps the reality is that this is simply not true. It may just be the case that these urban areas have been in this space far longer than Waterford. These urban areas have been attracting tourist and their citizens into the centres for far longer than Waterford and as a result are perceived to be much better at this process. The truth is they are much better at the Public Relations and spin and this in part makes these areas seem more attractive.

Waterford has an awful lot of catching up to do and this will take time. But we are moving in the right direction and we need to keep up the engagement with organisers of the right events that will attract the right people to Waterford and its City Centre.

I have always said that Waterford has the right people to make the City and County the MUST place to visit. It is just that so often many stakeholders are much happier to engage with people and businesses from outside of the Waterford environs. This needs to stop and these decision makers need to be secure in the knowledge that the talented people of Waterford can deliver just as much as the talented people of Kilkenny, Dublin, Galway and so on.

Once you start to dig just a wee bit deeper you start to see a picture emerging that there is actually an awful lot of events and activities going on this Summer across the whole of Waterford and many taking place in the City Centre itself.

We are really quite fortunate to have so many organisations, often thanklessly working away on our behalf, creating and running events for our enjoyment.

It really is time to celebrate the fact the as our days are beginning to get shorter there are more and more events available for us to attend. There can be no more excuses that other places do it better than Waterford because quite clearly we are leading the way and this alone is worth shouting about.

Quay to success lies in our City Centre!

North Quays artist impression.

I read with interest last week’s blanket coverage around the purchase of the North Quays by Waterford Council or the fact it has now been stated that the Council will take control of the North Quays – two completely different scenarios. What this actually means for the City and County will no doubt come out over time and as they say the devil is always in the detail.

Of course the development of this prime real estate has to be warmly welcomed and yet we are already reading proposal from various sources that this option and that option would be the best for the City. But what surely matters is that this area of the City’s infrastructure is developed rapidly and must also be developed in such a way as not to stop the critical and much needed development of the actual City Centre – the very heart of Waterford.

There were many attention-grabbing reports last week including, what I think was a ridiculous suggestion, that DIT should get involved in this process. Now where is the sense in that when we have our own WIT is screaming for University status and yet we have a Councillor wanting to involve a Dublin third level institute in what has to be a jealously safeguarded Waterford City project! The mind boggles sometimes.

Bustling market in the City Centre.

The North Quays could and should be one of the most attractive areas of the City and has to be developed for the benefit of the City, the County and the South East and it has to be selfishly developed in this order of priority.

It would also be worthwhile finally tackling the issue of Ferrybank and the complicated legacy of should this area be part of the City or part of Kilkenny. I would hope that there will be an announcement around this topic, in the near future, and again I would hope that the decision will be made for the betterment of the City, County and South East.

Developing the North Quays will of course bring the north side of the river back into the heart of the City if developed sympathetically and correctly. And as I have said this can only be good for the future of Waterford City.

But what of the very heart of Waterford City, its City Centre, which has in many people’s eyes been neglected from development for many, many years?

Can we justify spending or investing more money in the development of the North Quays without first of all redeveloping our City Centre?

We now know that the development of the Viking Triangle (VK) which has been welcomed but has the VK area driven the much promised footfall back into the heart of our City Centre? Have we seen the promised connectivity between the VK and retail core of the City? And have we educated tourists to stopping in the City for more than a few hours to ultimately staying a few nights in our City hotels and accommodation providers?

These questions must be answered before we rush to develop the North Quays. We have been quite rightly told for years that out of City development will not be permitted as this will destroy the very heart of our City Centre and yet we have failed to see equal investment support for the City Centre when compared to areas such as the VK and now perhaps the North Quay.

Blackfriars.

We cannot keep going on ignoring the fact that the City Centre needs investment, the City Centre needs to incentivise new retailers and the City Centre needs to have lower commercial rates to encourage retail and service industry investment. These plans have to be implemented otherwise we will see yet another area of the City be developed to the detriment of the City Centre. At a time when we need to be concentrating on creating the most attractive City Centre in Ireland and creating an experience that is uniquely Waterford focused will we be distracted by this exciting new project that has now appeared on the horizon?

There is limited funding available for every type of development and the simple fact is that we cannot be sidetracked and surely our priority now has to the City Centre’s development.

Without a vibrant City Centre we will not attract investment, we will not attract tourists, and we will not attract the people of Waterford into our City. The vivacity of the City Centre cannot be underestimated and when I walk in to the City at the start of the week or in the evenings and see just how quiet it is it begs the question “Have we collectively forgotten about developing OUR City Centre?”

The black fountain/obelisk does not work, the “car wash” on Broad Street has never worked, we have crocked lighting pillars in George’s Street, Blackfriars is very uninviting and so on and so on.

Purple Flag for Waterford City.

We have literally spent thousands of Euro investing in the Purple Flag initiative and thankfully this achieved an accredited award. However, the flag is flying rather limply now and this is in part due to a lack of external communication outside of the stakeholder group. Now is the time to bring home ALL our birds to roost and play to our strengths and deliver a City Centre worthy of this Purple Flag award. If we do not invest now in the City Centre we will very quickly come to the stage where we have deliberately created our own City Centre doughnut with an empty centre and lots of exciting opportunities around the periphery.

This course of action will over time once and for all “kill” our City Centre and there will be no recovery from such a doomsday scenario. If we are not careful and if we as citizens do not have our say then it may well be too late for all of us to see the genuine regeneration of the Waterford City Centre.

Waterford City South Quay at night.

In a time when there is so much pressure of inter-web shopping we must create a shopping experience like no other and we must give the very best service to every single customer that comes to Waterford. Until we are prepared to go that extra mile how can we expect others to travel ten of hundreds of miles to visit our historic City?

OUR City Centre has been crying out for urgent investment for a number of years and the money must be found to ensure the City Centre at the very least keeps pace with the VK and any proposed North Quays development.

Do we take the very innovative step of claiming back the South Quays as well and once and for all introduce affordable car parking to drive footfall back into the City Centre. This of course would be too easy and too simplistic – or would it?

Finally, we must all remember that without a healthy heart no one can survive!

A Challenge That Takes The Biscuit!

It is in the genes.

I referenced a few weeks ago a quote from a poem about doing your very best against all the odds and the particular lines from the poem that have most meaning were; “Rise and rise again, until the sheep have become lions”.

We saw again on Sunday from our young group of Waterford hurlers a collective will, drive and determination to well and truly uncork the bottle and we outplayed a more experienced team of hurlers. This true grit and determination is something that we all should and need to aspire to. To be part of a winning team means setting yourself your own challenging goals and this in turn will have a positive effect on those around you whether that be in your home, at work or during you

r leisure time.

Defining you role within an organisation is a challenge to all of us and we all know those individuals that appear to take this in their stride and emerge, on the surface anyway, to be cool as the proverbial cucumber and these people seem to have a great degree of confidence and very, very little self-doubt. We need to surround ourselves with these drivers and achievers in business if said business is to have longevity.

Like our young Waterford hurlers who have no doubt set themselves the tough goal of winning a Munster title, myself and seven other members of The Biscuit Club, a cycling sportif, set ourselves a very challenging goal of completing the Wicklow 200km cycle on Sunday 7^th June. Individually, we were all working away on our own fitness and I am sure we were all working out in our own minds just how we were to complete this gargantuan challenge. However we could all take comfort in the knowledge that we would collectively suffer the pain together.

I myself, having literally only picked up racing road bike in August of last year (2014), found the task in hand very daunting and I believed that for me to complete the 200km within my timeframe of under eight hours would be a huge mental challenge for myself. However, my past life and business experiences have taught me that the greater the challenge the greater my focus and this in turn drives me forward at an accelerated pace to relish whatever challenge is put in front of me. I am that dog who will not let the bone go and I know from my rugby playing days that I would always have sought out the biggest maddest player on the opposition team and smash them within the first few minutes of a game, just to lay down a marker. I suppose that in a way my Scottish genes mean that I really do savour a challenge.

Typical MAMIL.

On the Sunday 7^th June I was mentally prepared to tackle the very best of the hills and mountains that the Wicklow 200km could throw at me. Even a flat tyre before I set off would not distract my mind from the task in hand. And so eight intrepid Middle Aged Men In Lycra (MAMILs) set off at around 07:00 on Sunday morning to test our fitness, endurance, mental fortitude and no doubt there was just an edge of competitiveness to see just how we would compete against much more seasoned cyclists.

After many, many, many hours literally welded to the saddle we managed to come back, in ones and twos, to the finish line, at Bray Leisure Centre, in around 7 hours and 15 to 25 minutes. Remarkable times from everyone who took part and all the more remarkable as these MAMIL’s all have day jobs and cycling is after all a hobby and a pastime. The Wicklow 200km challenged all of us in a very personal way and to a man everyone stood up to the challenge and although utterly exhausted we managed to still smile at the end of an epic journey.

For me personally to get round the 200km in approximately seven hours and twenty minutes meant that I had over achieved on my goal of competing the 200km in less than eight hours. Having smashed my own personal goal I am already considering setting an under seven hours target for next year! Now there is a challenge!!!!!

Michael, Declan, John, Gary, Stephen & Ray.

Ambitious, absolutely YES. Is this actually achievable for me? Well I will find out in twelve months time and I am sure an increased number of Biscuits from Waterford City will join us in the challenge.

The setting of tough ambitious goals and targets works for me and works for those around me. This in part means that many of the people I surround myself with are by their very nature extremely positive people and certainly will not fear a challenge. Whilst we may all get slightly apprehensive about the challenges we set ourselves, a tough challenge tests our very character and our mental resolve. If you are sound in mind then anything is possible and you will go through life seeking out new opportunities with a degree of excitement that is palpable for all to see.

As a life lesson I see at the moment many teenagers getting overly stressed and worried about leaving certification examinations. These young adults who have done the hard work, put in the study times and covered the course work will do well. They just need to believe that they have prepared enough for the challenges of examinations.  They need to believe that they will do well and it is the responsibility of those positive people around these young adults to install the confidence that is needed to face the challenges of the examination room.

In life we all should be seeking out bigger tougher challenges that will stretch us both physically and mentally. Our mind and body both crave regular exercise and the more we work our bodies constituent parts the better we will be to meet whatever challenge our work life and leisure life throws at us.

Too big a challenge?

Being able to say that you have done your absolute best and could give no more is the most any business can ask of its employees. If that business is lucky enough to have a motivated workforce and the business knows how to challenges it staff members then such a business will have longevity. However, surround yourself with lazy, negative, pessimistic and unmotivated staff members this will ensure that a business has no future.

How we tackle challenges in life and in business define us. So remember that every uphill has a downhill just over the summit and the tougher the uphill the greater the reward coming down the other side.

The worst "since records began!"

In meteorological terms the 1^st of June always marks that start of summer.

Irish weather forecasting!

This date is the reference point that is used by meteorologists to allow year on year comparison with weather related statistics and probably allows comparisons “since records began”. Not that many of us actually understand what this phrase really means. We apparently had absolutely no records of any weather patterns until one day some bright spark started writing down what the weather was like on any given day they woke up, and so “since records began” started. That first date must have been an amazing date when it was simply the hottest, wettest, driest, windiest and coldest day on record!

Not that the weather this week has felt anything like summer and as we all hope that, that one day of wonderful weather we had back in May was not summer, we all keep our fingers crossed that this summer will be the best “since records began”.

The compiling of statistical information is hugely important for businesses when they need to refer back to weekly, monthly and yearly key performance indicators. This inevitably leads to direct comparison and more importantly details a statistical evaluation of how the business is performing. This can then allow for real time adjustments to strategy to get a business back on track in terms of the annual budgetary goals that would have been set at the start of the financial year.

Using the correct statistical information is also a fundamental if we are to assess accurately how we are performing.

I heard only last week a lot of commentary that Waterford is now “moving in the right direction” in terms of its economic recovery. Well this is and is not true.

Footfall!

Yes, we are seeing some great economic news on the jobs front, particularly in the pharmaceutical and service sectors. And these positive news stories will no doubt bring greater attention to the City and hopefully more investment.

But our retail sector continues to struggle with falling footfall (stagnant at best), very low disposable income per household, high commercial rates, high cost of planning regulation and years of neglect. As we are selling Waterford Inc to potential investors the very heart of Waterford, its City Centre, MUST develop at an accelerated pace in order to keep up with other industry led expansion.

The lowering of the cost of operating a business in the City Centre will bring in a better retail mix and will, I am sure, give additional impetus to the Michael Street and Apple Market projects. Both of these projects incidentally have been championed by the Waterford Business Group for the last two years and it is refreshing to see this level of commercialism from within the Council. However, the caveat to this is to have the Council drive the project at a commercial pace and deliver for the City in a shortened time frame. There are far too many examples of Local Government and National Government moving at a snail’s pace when a cheetah’s pace is needed. Waterford is a prime example where not only is the clock ticking but we will very shortly need a Doctor Who like time machine to catch up.  

By the end of the first month of the summer we will be halfway through the financial year for many companies in Waterford. There will be much soul searching and pressing of calculator buttons, as businesses right across the City Centre realise that the financial predictions made at the start of the year are falling way short of what is needed to actually keep trading and stay in business.

Apple Market artists impression.

This is the actual position many of the businesses in our City Centre find themselves in today. They are not worried about lasting to the end of the year or lasting to the end of the summer, they are worried about surviving to the end of the week!

Reality bites when as a business owner you have no salary to take home and you are sacrificing your own wellbeing in order to keep your staff employed. Yet there is an assumption that the business owners of Waterford City are somehow making absolute fortunes at the moment as we hear more and more misplaced commentary about the economic recovery across Waterford City. 

Yes, there are astonishingly rapid recoveries happening in Dublin, Cork, Galway and Limerick but these four Cities are not in the third tier of economic recovery. Waterford and the South East are and this is a fact. You only have to look at the Pobal HP Deprivation Index, as used recently by Mr Browne and his boys, to understand just the scale of the economic recovery needed across the South East. Just to catch up with the likes of Galway and Limerick there is a massive amount of work needed and it is not as though the Pobal information is old. The Pobal HP Deprivation Index was generated in 2011/2012 some four summers ago!

So how are the City Centre’s businesses going to survive this week, this month and this summer?

The very minimum that is needed is a further 20% reduction in the commercial rates for City Centre businesses in 2016. A 20% reduction was enabled two years ago when Minister Hogan was lobbied by the Waterford Business Group.

There are now more commercial rates going into the City’s coffers with the many new industrial premises being built and the various expansions taking place. This increase in industrial rates must be offset against a reduction in City Centre commercial rates and every Councillor in the City and County must start working on driving the cost of operating a business in our City Centre DOWN.

 Omnishambles or Dr Who?

Our City Centre can only be at the heart of our City and County if we have a progressive commercial rates structure, which in turn will attract a wider variety of retailers, which in turn will increase footfall, which in turn will increase employment, which in turn will increase commercial rates revenue for the Council and so on. It is very simple and is a WIN, WIN for all.

If we do not want this summer to be the worst “since records began” for our City Centre businesses we must act now or it will simply be too late and even Doctor Who will not be able to help.