Thursday 30 July 2015

Don’t Leave It All To The Loudmouths!

Loudmouth - we all know one or two.
The City’s Urban Renewal Plans are now available for everyone, and I mean everyone, to view and more importantly they are accessible for every one of us to comment on. The Council have literally opened their doors so that they can engage with the People of Waterford on the renewal of their own City. It is a once in a lifetime opportunity.

It is such a landmark consultation process that I heard one senior Council official commented that “We are going to go to a lot of trouble to consult with the public”, so we have heard it from the proverbial horse’s mouth that we as Waterford citizens have been invited to play our part in the whole process.

From all the publicity reported by our excellent local newspapers and the snippets I have heard on WLR FM it appears on the surface that this is a genuine invitation to ALL Waterford citizens and it really is an opportunity not to be missed.

But actually how many of us will go that extra mile and make the effort to attend the briefing sessions, consult the Council website, engage with our local Councillors and just how many of us will submit a written report or written observation or express a reservation for that matter?

Too long in the tooth.
I may be too long in the tooth to really believe that there will actually be a full, frank and open public consultation process because in the real world this never ever, ever happens. The process of consultation is itself flawed and self-fulfilling as only the people with an interest in the project will actually come forward with their own views and opinions. It is almost certain that the majority of people and businesses who may be adversely affect by any proposed developments or street alterations will be the lone voices that speak up. The rest of us may take a passing interest but more often than not there will be an absolutely tiny percentage of the population that will submit their or their pier groups’ combined observations and concerns. 

Only those who can actually be bothered to get their arse in gear will in reality make an effort to engage in this process.

R. Lee Ermey.
This is course is NOT what we should be doing!!!!!

If Waterford City is to be redeveloped for the benefit of Waterford, its People and the better economic benefit of the South East we ALL need to start getting involved in the Urban Renewal Plans and I would recommend that people start that process NOW!

To be fair to our Metropolitan Councillors, at their last meeting, they to a man and a woman were very engaged in the process and debated very strongly with the Council Executive. Whilst, being told on the one hand that the Council did not really have to consult with anyone on plans that involved road changes or road alterations. They all expressed concern at the lack of information that was being feed to them and to a certain extent they were all very aware that information was “going public” without their knowledge.

This of course puts our Councillors in the unenviable position of possibly being asked questions about plans they know nothing about, which will make them look silly through no fault of their own. At the very least if the People of Waterford are being asked to connect with the process then our Councillors must be forearmed and forewarned with ALL the necessary information and they need to be brought up to speed through a series of in-house workshops. This I hope will happen as I have no doubt our Councillors will have an increased workload to facilitate this process.

The bottom line is that we the citizens of Waterford City need to make our voices heard and we all need to make a commitment to at the very least view the proposed plans so that we can be educated as to how any changes will alter the very foundations of our Medieval City.

As I see it we need to ask ourselves some very basic questions;

  • Will these modern plans really fit the fabric of what is after all an ancient City with an ancient road network and an ancient foundation/layout?
  • Are changes being made for the sake of making changes?
  • Will the changes drive footfall up in the City Centre and therefore allow businesses to flourish and increase employment?
  • Will the changes encourage the people of Waterford to come back into their City Centre?
  • Should we develop the Michael Street Shopping Centre and its environs first and then reassess any future development plans?
  • Is the additional traffic calming and the removal of a significant numbers of off-street parking spaces a solution to bringing more people into the City Centre?

It really does not matter if you agree with the above questions or not. The simple fact is that if you are concerned about the City’s future NOW is the time to voice your opinion.

Do not leave it to the people who shout the loudest as they a more often than not wrong!
Mayor's Walk proposition.
Waterford Council website details on Urban Renewal is as follows: www.waterfordcouncil.ie/en/Resident/Planning/Forward,Planning/Urban,Renewal/

Thursday 23 July 2015

Have we misplaced our shovel?

Don't hold your breath. 
Waterford City Centre was literally buzzing last weekend and this in part could be attributed to the current promotional programme that is “Summer in the City” and of course the good weather helped also.

This is a cooperative effort by the Waterford Council, Waterford Chamber and the Waterford Business Group who have combined with the Council’s Art Department to organise a series of free entertainment events every Friday evening and Saturday afternoon right through until Saturday 12th September. In addition there will be a concurrent ArtBeat project that focuses on young emerging local talent playing in New Bailey’s Street.

These two projects are truly a collaborative approach to making the City and its Centre a viable and attractive place for us Waterfordonians and our many summer visitors to congregate and enjoy some excellent entertainment. ArtBeat is also an “edgier” option for the younger members of Waterford at explore budding talent and New Bailey’s Street is certainly swinging to a different beat every Saturday afternoons right through until 29th August.

It is by working together that we will move Waterford forward and create a product that we can all be proud of and to a certain extent we can all shout about in a positive manner.

But like so much positive news stories there is always a wee word of caution.

Whilst the City Centre is busier at the weekends we are seeing the start of the week becoming increasingly quieter. This is a concern to the many businesses and employers around our City Centre. The need to get increased footfall into the City Centre has to be a priority and increased footfall on the weekends cannot be at the detriment to the start of the week. This imbalance of peak shopping times needs to be looked at and, dare I say, we need to incentivise shoppers to come into the City Centre at the start of the working week.

In fact we need to incentivise shoppers to come into the City Centre on every day of the week!

With another large development about to open in Ardkeen Shopping Centre we will see further erosion of the possible market share for the City Centre and there can be no doubt that this will have an adverse effect on the footfall. We know that there are so many people who have simply gotten out of the habit of venturing down the Dunmore Road or down the Cork Road or coming across the bridge to access the City Centre and this has to be of immense concern to everyone.

Are we now inadvertently creating our own City Centre doughnut and are we ever so slowly strangling the life out of the City Centre?

I would be concerned that we are not creating enough incentives for people to come into the City Centre and this always brings us back to the age old problems and fiery topics of car parking and retail mix. When we hear and read about proposal to spend money on the North Quay and other areas “outside” the actual City Centre we must ask the question would such large sums of money not be better spent addressing the South Quay car parking. Is not the solution staring us in the face?

We need to “take back” the South Quay and reinvent this space/area as public realm space thus allowing us, our visitors, our tourists and alike to actually access this wonderful piece of real estate. I am sure the costs involved in claiming back these areas would be much less than any investment into the North Quay and would an attractive South Quay ensure an accelerated development of the North Quay. This proposition along with a radical solution to cheaper and more affordable car parking would drive up footfall in the City Centre and encourage a better retail mix. After all no big retailer will invest in an area that does not have the creative potential to deliver ever increasing numbers of shoppers and therefore income. 

Yes, the proposed Michael Street development will help our retail mix but just how long will this project take to come to fruition and will it come on stream in time to help boost the footfall to the City Centre. A North Quay development will also help in attracting “business people and suits” to the City but again just how long will we have to wait for this development, and judging by how long it has taken to knock down the old mills I would not be holding your breath.

Groundhog Day.
Surely, we need to be acting now and we need to be acting collaboratively to get our City Centre re-energized once more and the clock is ticking extremely fast and if we and the powers that be are not prepared to act in an accelerated manner surely it will be too late. And in years to come will we all be lamenting that we “should have done this and we should have done that” way back in 2014 and 2015.

Well, we are now halfway through 2014 and still we waking up to the same “Groundhog Day” issues and concerns that have been dragging on for years and years. Surely, we no longer need to wait for another consultants report or another enquiry. Rather we need to act now and we need to act radically once and for all to get the people of Waterford and our visitors back into our City Centre.

The very heart of Waterford’s future plans has to be the City Centre and if we are serious about positioning the City as an economic driver of the south east, as a future University City, with a University Hospital and so on, then we need to be proactive in our solutions in tackling the falling footfall in the City Centre.

Why can’t we introduce a creative car parking solution and give free car parking to support promotions such as “Summer in the City” to attract even more people into the City Centre? Why can’t we have reduced car parking rate rates at the start of the week and so on? Why is taking back the South Quay off the agenda?

Only three possible suggestions, but suggestions that will have real economic impact and at a time when all we will be hearing in the run up to the next budget and next general election is “this will create REAL economic impact” then that economic impact needs to hit Waterford pretty fast and very hard.

You don’t have to dig too deep to find those creative solutions. Maybe we have just misplaced our shovel?

Thursday 16 July 2015

Road to ruin for your car or bike!

For those who have been reading this blog for some six months now will know that in the last year I have quite openly come out and I am now a MAMIL (Middle Aged Man In Lycra)!

Yes, I have taken up road cycling with the Waterford Biscuit Club and I have somehow now become one of those people on a bike that one way or another seem to infuriate some of our vehicular brethren.


I have read and heard about cyclist hating drivers’ texting, emailing and commenting on programmes such as Deise AM, in recent weeks, and also passing sentencing on cyclist in line with Minister Donohoe’s new fines for us MAMIL’s.

Readers who know me more intimately will know that I am a self-confessed petrol head and I have raced XR2’s around Knockhill and also owned all manner of interesting cars from a 1964 Mini Cooper S, Triumph Dolomite Sprint, MKII Escort Mexico, Escort Turbo, Astra GTE and so on right through to my current generation one Mini Cooper S – I really have had the whole gamut of boy racer cars and some say I am still driving one today (midlife crisis maybe)!

Whilst, I do agree that there are some poor cyclists on our roads I see proportionately far more very bad drivers who still insist on using their mobile phones, I see children not suitably restrained in the front and backs of cars, people who treat a roundabout as a “squareabout”, people who ignore the speed restriction signage and above all I see lots of very angry people in vehicles who are quite plainly one hoot of their horn away from a serious road rage incident!

The fact is that everyone who is entitled to use our roadways and laneways should do so with the utmost respect for other road users. And yes this might mean having to lift the occasional hand to say sorry rather than flicking one or two other digits at an offending road user. Life is far too short to be Mr Angry all the time and to be honest it does take far more effort and concentration to be the ubiquitous “I don’t believe it!” grumpy Mr Victor Meldrew rather than a Mr Happy.

All local road users share the same tarmac or in the case of the roads in Waterford City I would imagine we share some of the worst road surfaces in the whole of Ireland!

I travel in and out to the City Centre on most days of the week in my wee Mini Cooper S and due to the hard suspension and low profile tyres I feel every bump and hole in the patch work quilt that we now call the Dunmore Road. Yes, I understand that the roadwork’s are a necessity and that at some time in the very far, far future the surface will allegedly be remedied but we all know that the surface will NEVER be returned to resemble what is was prior to the road works starting. We will end up with a rubbish surface that needs and demands constant future attention and expensive Council resources.

However, I did not quite realise just how bad the Dunmore Road surface had become until I had the misfortune of cycling up it last Sunday with fellow Biscuit Ian. I would describe the experience similar to hiking in the Alps or Munro bagging in Scotland. To justify the surface as a “road surface” is to say the very least stretching the boundaries of the definition of both of these words. To make matters worse I have recently upgraded my “shite bike” and now ride a thoroughbred steed and naturally enough I wish to look after this bike and I believe that sometimes the road surfaces around the City must be damaging my bike, my car and me!
 
From the People’s Park to Ardkeen roundabout is patchwork quilt of varying surface materials, lots of very big lumps and some huge bumps, sharp edges that will tear at tyres and alloy wheels, gravel and loose material that has simply been swept into the cycle lane, drain and form edges that stand proud of the road and a whole myriad of other issues that should be of concern to every vehicular and cycle users alike.

I cannot for one minute accept that what we are currently being asked to navigate on is tolerable to any road users and you have to wonder if the people in charge of this engineering catastrophe actually use this road for their daily commute. And as for the radio adverts asking people to find alternative route well I am sorry but this is Waterford and not London and there are NO alternative routes especially when school term time is upon us and the airing of these advert seems to be a simple box ticking statutory exercise.

Also, remember that this road is THE gateway to our coastal villages and sandy beaches and in many respects our shop window to and from the City. This is one of the main arteries that feeds our City and brings commerce into and out of the City Centre. The Dunmore Road is also the main access route that cuts a swath right through the City Centre to access all parts north, northwest and east of Waterford City.

During these summer months and weeks just how many visitors, tourists or cruiser liner visitors will travel this route in and out of our City Centre and wonder if they are in fact travelling on some sort of third-world dirt track road when they should be one of the smoothest surfaces available to vehicular traffic?

This the wrong impression we will be giving the very people who we need to come to Waterford to spend their money directly into our local economy? As we are lagging so far behind other tourism destinations do we not have to be ahead of the game and constantly be better than our competitors.

If we are collectively promoting a positive message around our wonder coastline, our heritage, our culture and so on, the very least we can do is ensure that the roads that people need to travel on to access these attractions needs to be up to par and unfortunately they are not.

Is it acceptable that at the height of our tourist season we are willing to accept the “Boys from the Blackstuff” finish? Albeit a temporary finish, we are told, but as temporary finishes go this has to be atrocious, appalling, inexcusable and is it in fact an intolerable surface for any of us to use?

As our shop window to the City and the County the Dunmore Road is at the moment the worst window display you will ever see and we have to ask just what are we saying about our City if we find this surface appropriate?

I have a feeling that just as Minister Donohoe’s new cycling fines will see lots of Lance Armstrong’s now living in the City the Dunmore Road will remain a navigational nightmare until such times as the whole road is resurfaced perfectly.


We really have such a long way to go to get the simplest of things right.

Friday 10 July 2015

Unchained melody hits the wrong note!

Positive public relations (PR) for the City and County is an essential part of our marketing mix and is something that, as I have said time and time again, we ALL need to be aware of if we are to promote that City and County in a positive light.

The last seven to ten days have been filled with positive news stories right across the City and County. From the opening of the Lafcadio Hearn Japanese styled gardens in Tramore to the Medieval Festivals in the City and Dungarvan, Dromana 800 in West Waterford to the Promenade Festival in Tramore, Day Tripper concerts in Bolton Street and the Summer In The City musical treats in John Roberts Square and Wyse Park, (to name but a few) we really did have an awful lot to take in over the last seven to ten days.

And all of these events help create a general positive experience when it comes to making us feel better about our City and County and with the local papers full of pictures of our smiling sun drenched beaming pasty faces, eating ice cream, and attending these events, this creates a sense that we are all very predisposed to the upbeat PR messaging we are reading. These messages make us feel warm and fuzzy inside and that is good.

These most simple of generic PR messages have reinforced our knowledge that when all is said and done Waterford really is a great place to live, work and play.

The opposite side of the coin is of course how we might view and comprehend the mountains of self generated PR we come across on a daily basis.

For example, over the last 7 to 10 days we can also throw into the mix all the media and social media commentary on the appointment of the Mayor of Waterford City and County and the appointment of the Mayor of the Waterford Metropolitan area. And when we sit down in the cold light of day to review this messaging do we all believe that these types’ messages also show the City and County in the same positive light?

We have one Mayor serving the City and County (who chairs the main Waterford Council plenary meetings) and one Mayor serving the Metropolitan area of the City (who chairs the Metropolitan area Council meetings). This does of course lead to some confusion on behalf of, us, the members of the public and also leads to a number of protocol issues around who will or will not wear the ceremonial chains at this event and that event.

There is also another interesting PR dynamic that we will all see develop over the next ten months with both Mayoral councillors no doubt keeping one beady eye on the date of the next general election. Councillor Quinlan has already thrown his hat into the ring and I have no doubt the Councillor Cummins may well be contemplating doing the same.

With both of these Councillors in opposing political camps it will be very interesting to see who actually takes the lead in are

a of self generated PR and will the vast pages PR that each will undoubtedly generate be for the benefit of the City and County or the benefit of the individual?

Let us not be fooled as this process has already started and we have begun to see “the chains” being rolled out at this event and that event. The race has begun to stake a claim as a preferred candidate for the next general election and it will be most intriguing to monitor the progress of these two Councillors as they begin to position themselves with their respective party hierarchy.

So we must review and interpret the entire mountains of PR we read and are bombarded with on a daily basis and any messaging contained therein must be scrutinised and understood. We all must look at what we are reading and assess if this is, at the time of reading, relevant to “me” and if it is we will remember the context of what we read and therefore we will be more apt to regurgitate at a later date. If however, what we are reading is of no interest whatsoever to us we will conveniently forget what we have read and have no further interaction with the content of any PR article.

To be able to be interactive with any PR that we come across it is important that it is of relevance to us and perhaps more importantly it is vital that what we read connects with us and therefore plays in some way with our senses. PR will take us through a whole roller coaster of emotions and cleverly written PR will drive home specific messages that will become pertinent to us time and time again.

For Waterford City and County to continue to exponentially grow in importance within ALL of us we must keep reading positive PR messages. Messages that are not about individual self promotion rather messages that are about the greater good of Waterford Inc.

Remember to read between the lines to get the real meaning of any PR.


Wednesday 1 July 2015

Ireland's Ancient East needs to deliver today!

On Thursday 25th June I was kindly invited, by Minister Paudie Coffey TD, to attend a workshop on the tourism project called Ireland’s Ancient East, which was chaired by Minister Pascal Donohoe TD, Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport.
So many holiday choices.

It was great to note that Minister Donohoe spent the whole day in Waterford City and County seeing at firsthand our tourism offering and also I am sure that he took the opportunity to meet and greet many businesses involved in his ministerial portfolio.

We met in the Granville Hotel with industry representatives and members of the Council Executive.

As we are all aware Ireland’s Ancient East project was muted quite some time ago (possible as long ago as two years) and is in every single way the response to the highly successful Wild Atlantic Way project launched a number of years ago. The Wild Atlantic Way is literally pulling hundreds of thousands of tourists to the West and the unfortunate consequence of this is that less and less International tourists are coming to the Waterford and the South East. The Wild Atlantic Way has been a massively successful project and there can be absolutely no doubt that the strength of this new west coast brand will be nearly impossible to compete with and therefore we are yet again playing catch up to the rest of Ireland Inc.
Ireland's Ancient East.

The simple truth is that Waterford and the South East get the smallest amount of International tourist and more alarmingly we get a very insignificant amount of the available overseas tourism spend. And it is this very small percentage of spend that we should all be very concerned about. It is Tourism Ireland that promotes all things Irish in terms of this Emerald Isle as a destination. They really are only concerned with visiting numbers and the reality is that it makes no difference if 7 million tourists come to just one place as long as that place is in Ireland somewhere. So as a destination attractor Ireland’s Ancient East will have to be very special indeed if we are to get an ever increasing larger slice of the International tourism pie.

Despite all the efforts over the last number of years Waterford is still seen as a “very quick visit” for International tourists and as a results many spend literally a couple of hours, and a couple of Euro, in Waterford Crystal and the Viking Triangle and then hop back on to a tour bus and then it is off to Kilkenny or off down to the West of Ireland.

This of course is not what we want and the Ireland’s Ancient East project has to go an awful long way go to remedy this leakage of tourists and their much needed injection of Euro into our local economy. We are almost back to the same old scenario when our tourist numbers visited Kilbarry, bypassing the City altogether, and stayed two hours then it was off down the Cork Road and into the West.

The Wild Atlantic Way.
The fact the politicians from within Fine Gael cannot agree on whether Waterford should have its own tourism offering as part of Ireland’s Ancient East or be part of the wider Wild Atlantic Way does give cause for concern when you consider just how far behind we are in terms of our offering. On the day the Minister Donohoe was in Waterford his party colleague, Mr Deasy TD, was on WLR FM calling for Waterford Council to once again push for inclusion in the Wild Atlantic way. I personally believe that we have to have our own unique offering and from my very limited knowledge of all things Wild and Atlantic I do not believe we are in fact on the Atlantic at all, and we are on the Celtic Sea (I think) and as such we need our own unique selling point as part of a wider tourism offering! 

Interesting to note that Cork is hedging its bets and is on both maps of the Wild Atlantic Way and Ireland's Ancient East - you have got to hand it to them!

Minister Donohoe stated that he wished to see 600,000 additional tourists come to the South East by 2020, but that timescale is of course far too late or Waterford City and the wider South East region and this was pointed out to the Minister during the workshop. Quite simply need those 600,000 additional tourist now and next year and not 4 or 5 years away. Like our retail sector we need to see increased numbers coming immediately to the City and County, and all manner of hills and mountains need to be moved to achieve this. I often wonder if it is only me that can see the need for urgency and rapid implementation of projects that will bring financial security to the City and I do wonder if other see the City and County through a pair of optically challenge set of rose tinted glasses.

I pointed out to the Minister that communicating the messaging of the project is key and vital to its success, and that all front-line responders needed to be aware of the project and its objectives so that tourist would benefit from the correct information. Unfortunately, as is so often the case, unless the appropriate senior civil servants and their departments get behind the project it is doomed to be moving along at a snail’s pace when we require the implementation speed of a Peregrine falcon!

When you consider that most tour operators are already selling 18 to 24 months ahead we are realistically taking about 2017 at the very earliest before we can even look at persuading these tour operators to come and consider Ireland’s Ancient East. And we will then have try to persuade these operators to leave their traditional markets and bear in mind that these existing markets will be fighting tooth and nail to keep their existing supply chain and that tourism income. It really will be an monumental uphill struggle.

The success of Ireland’s Ancient East project will ultimately be down to buy-in from all sectors concerned within the tourism industry and history tells us, which we never seems to learn from, that for such a project to work we need to see real on-the-ground-work being down and figuratively speaking we need to see people prepared to “wear out their shoe leather”.

Failure to get the industry informed and get the industry enthused will deliver nothing. It is all very well communicating this message internally and within Government Departments but getting the message out to a wider stakeholder group is a whole different proposition.

And we can see similar mistakes with the opportunities around the Purple Flag in Waterford, where there has been a communication void in terms of message reinforcement. Yes, we need better stakeholder buy-in but the whole message dissemination around the Purple Flag in Waterford leaves one wondering if it could not have been done better.
Alchemists workshop.

So, the Ireland’s Ancient East project has the potential to deliver, but only if Minister Donohoe is prepared to rattle a few cages, stand on a few toes and move the year 2020 to 2017.

Though I am not sure alchemy is in his portfolio!