“It’s beginning to feel at lot like Christmas!”

If truth be told, that Christmas feeling seems to begin earlier and earlier each year. In fact, it appears to start right after Halloween. Once all the reduced in price “Trick or treat” paraphernalia, such as vampire costumes, werewolf masks, gory face paint, sickly marshmallow sweets and monkey nuts are gone, they’re gone.

Tinsel, baubles and Christmas trees, miraculously come out as if by magic! Even the BIG man from the North, invites us to make a list, before “Black Friday” gets us all excited whilst maxing out our credit cards. Make no bones about it, we succumb to commercialisation all too easily. Even Santa’s hard working wee elves are not immune to modern day pressures.

We can see evidence of Waterford making its annual Christmas statement, with the return of Winterval and Santa switching on the lights, on Friday 17^th November. This will take place in the heart of the City Centre. Supported live on air by WLR FM. All this exciting action will take place between John Robert’s Square and The Apple Market.

You may also have noticed that preparations are well under way, ready for the official Winterval Festival launch.

A huge vintage Ferris wheel has located itself on The Quay, opposite Shaw’s Department Store. You may just have seen the structure being erected last weekend. This is apparently, the largest mobile in Ireland. Offering passengers a unique perspective of the City and unparalleled views across the River Suir. Just remember to wrap up and maybe bring a warm blanket when going on this, as you wouldn’t wish to have a cold for Christmas day.

Winterval’s very successful ice rink, has of course moved to a bigger, better, new location, the Waterside Car Park, previously the old gas works. This will allow not one but two ice rinks to be operated. There will be the usual large rink and a smaller rink, to encourage the wee ones to take up ice skating. This makes a lot of sense. Previously, the mix of giddy teenagers trying to impress one another, caused many a collision and safety concerns for the smaller members of our community.

The move has caused some consternation, stoked of course by social media. One or two Facebook posts, indicating that the rink was NOT returning! In reality this has given the new operators lots of free publicity, creating a frisson of excitement. Will the new rink deliver a little bit extra this year?

The Apple Market, Waterford’s newest outdoor venue, continues to programme fresh, innovative exciting events. There will be a Christmas village located here, lots of live music and maybe even the opportunity to have an interactive snowball fight!

With so much going on, I do wonder, if these Christmassy distractions, will encourage those who represent us, to have some down time? After all, our Santa list for Waterford Inc. is not that big, is it?

Well yes it is!

The Cath Lab resolution must be at the top of Waterford’s long standing Christmas wish list. However, the recently published “Terms of reference”, appear, “Surprise, surprise”, to be anti-Waterford. Why, one wonders, do we have to start every process quite literally on the back foot! Surely, someone, given the record of reports for Waterford, had to be influencing the terms of reference, before they were published and NOT after.

University status for WIT, has been kicked so far down the road, that yet another generation of secondary level school leavers are missing out and having to travel many kilometres to go to a third level university. Waterford Airport has had no commercial flights for nearly 20 months and Government has been very quiet on the funding for our North Quays. This wish list, despite numerous opportunities, would have allowed Ireland’s Three Wise Men (Varadkar, Donohoe and Coveney) to be the bearers of gifts, our Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh.

There is much to look forward locally this festive season. Waterford will no doubt be supported regional by many a Christmas shopper and visitor.

I hope that these Dublin centric elves, don’t forget us and remember to deliver the odd present or two, to kick start our 2018.

Good News - Winter is just around the corner!

The end of Autumn, according to the meteorological calendar, is the 30^th November, which also happens to be St.Andrew’s Day, the patron saint of Scotland. Though, we do not quite have such an energetically celebrated festival, as that afforded to St.Patrick, here in Ireland and around the world. In fact we do very little to celebrate this day and in terms of turning the world blue we do not hold a patch on you guys, when you, year after year manage to turn the whole world green on 17^th March. Maybe one day!

With Autumn over, wonderful Winter quickly follows suit and I must say, that this is one of my favourite times of the year. Getting out on a very crisp cold morning, for a brisk, effervescent walk, or short sharp ride in my lurid Lycra, does me the world of good. It clears my head, refreshing my mind about all the good things we have here on our doorstep, in wonderful Waterford.

So, whichever way you package it, there really is so much to look forward to this Winter.

Over the last week, we have seen a mini retail tsunami, with new retailers opening in Ireland’s oldest City Centre. There have been queues and queues of young ladies, waiting patiently in line to buy lippy, liner, lashes, and much, much more, from a new “all things makeup” brand, that has opened in City Square Shopping Centre. This hysteria follows hotfoot (excuse the pun), on the back of a new shoe brand, which has rightly chosen Waterford City as its south east flagship store. These two brands will certainly add to our retail offering and are excellent news, just in time for Christmas.

The retail expansion over the last few weeks has continued to improve, through the work of some stakeholders and in particular, the committee members of the Waterford Business Group. They have been working tirelessly away in the background, making personal contacts, speaking to and encouraging the relocation of brands to our City Centre. We cannot underestimate the volume of voluntary work undertaken on our behalf, to make Waterford a better place.

Hopefully, T & H will be opening soon and the planning issues being encountered by several other brands, will be resolved in a positive light. Thus, adding significantly to our and our visitors’ retail experience of the City Centre. The more attractive and unique our City Centre becomes, the better the shopping fulfilment will be for everyone.

Of course Winter in Waterford, now comes with Winterval attached too. Incidentally, a name Mr McCarthy, at WLR, has difficulty liking! I heard him mention this on Friday’s programme and he might be right, as Mrs Garland too has difficulty with the name. Anyway, Winterval will be back on our streets on 25^th November, a week later than last year and this will also be the date for the switching on, of our Christmas lights. This sparked much debate last week and I for one, believe that the third Friday in November is the correct switching on, of the lights and the start of our Christmas retail period. This change of date, at the behest of whom and with no consultation with our retailers, has put us a week behind our competitors. Bah Humbug!

I have no doubt that there are plans afoot, to do something special on Friday 18^th November. This should be the lights on date. To this extent keep an eye on the local press for further details. Now that’s the spirit of Christmas, giving something back to the people of Waterford!

So, there is much to look forward to in Waterford. We inevitably start the countdown, to that big red, beardy one, coming down the chimney. Delivering all manner of weird, wonderful and unwanted presents. Top of MY present wish list, are lower Council car parking rates for ALL!

Remember that the bountiful few weeks in the run up to Christmas, may well account for up to 30% of our local businesses annual turnover.

Shop smart, shop local, shop Waterford!

Waterford cannot just be for Christmas!

As we head inextricably towards Christmas Day it was great to see the City Centre so busy last weekend, despite the best efforts of storm Desmond. It has been quite clear for some time now that our traditional Waterford shopping days are now Thursday, Friday and Saturday and of course Sunday, probably being the busiest shopping day due to the unlimited FREE car parking we can all avail of.

It is great to see these increased footfall numbers that our City Centre retailers so badly need and of course the Winterval Festival and the Waterford Business Group’s “Shop Local Sunday”, the 13^th December, and the Winter Wonderbands competition, Sunday 13^th December, will all help to keep those footfall numbers UP!

What about after this Festive period?

Teresa Mannion taking on storm Desmond!

The fact is that Waterford businesses need to have continuous support to help keep these SME’s in business. To put it bluntly there has to be money coming across the counter in order for businesses to employ staff, pay commercial rates, pay insurance premiums, pay utility bills, pay vat, pay revenue etc. The cost of being in business is very high and enormously challenging and many of the businesses we love and support are in fact operating at tiny margins, some as low as 5%.

These tiny margins make it extraordinarily challenging to absorb any increased business costs and therefore the only way for many of these businesses to survive and grow is to see a reduction in business costs coupled with significant increases in footfall numbers across the City and County.

However, this message I fear is being loss on so many of those that represent us.

My journalistic colleagues and I do not for one moment class myself as one of our City’s journalist (truth is I just always wanted an excuse to say that phrase), have indicated to me that at the Councils recent “behind closed doors budget meetings” a cohort of Councillors had advocated an INCREASE in commercial rates and an INCREASE in City Centre car parking charges. Perhaps proof that these sources were correct was the fact that there was also a proposal to implement car parking charges in Dunmore East, which was subsequently defeated.

In the end what we ended up with, after I hope was some robust lobbying, was no rates and no car parking increases but a 20% commercial rates charge on empty shops and empty premises for 2016 and beyond.

The fact that such increases were even considered shows just how out of touch some of our Councillors are with the realities of being in business in the City and County. Perhaps these Councillors should identify themselves and explain to us their justification as to why they considered those aforementioned increases appropriate to the many businesses across the City and County.

I fear now that the new “empty building” commercial rates charge may in fact create a big hairy retail monster for the City Centre. If distressed property owners are in reality being forced to rent out their properties, you have to ask yourself just what type of retailer will fill such premises at what can only be very low rental prices.

Far from offering a carrot to getting premises let are we not in danger of filling our City and County with the very retailers that will drive footfall elsewhere, where there is better choice and a better retail mix?

To generate much needed increased footfall and the higher spend that will eventually attract new retailers to the City Centre, the very retailers that my daughter keeps harping on about, we need to create a holistic approach that gives out far more carrots and does less beating with a stick.

We are not there just yet and in order to get there we need more direct lobbying by the very people who understand the dynamics of being in business in Waterford.

Time to speak the truth even if your voice shakes.