Are you illegally dumping waste on our roads?
Are you dumping your waste at full recycle collection points?
Are you allowing your dog to take a dump on our footpaths, in your neighbours garden, on our beaches and green areas where our children play?
Are you allowing your dog to wander around the estates and streets?
Do you throw your cigarette ends and litter onto our streets?
Do you allow your children to roam our town day and night vandalising property and intimidating people?
Are you driving at high speed through our streets and housing estates?
Are you parking illegally in disabled parking spots?
Are you parking illegally on our footpaths blocking wheelchairs, prams and forcing pedestrians onto the road?
Do you smoke outside the pubs blocking footpaths?
Do you spit your chewing gum onto our streets?
Do you write graffiti on our walls?

Do you fail to properly maintain a commercial premises or residential property in our town.

If you’ve answered yes to any of the above then shut up about jobs and clean up your act and maybe we can have a cleaner town that’s a pleasure to live in! Youghal is seen as a dump by people outside of Youghal. It’s a rough and filthy place to live.

Do you show courtesy to your fellow youghal citizens and look after and promote our town as much as you can?

If the answer is yes than we’ll change Youghal. Not the councillors and certainly not the business people.

@ Mike: In terms of moderation here, this comment thread has certainly brought it to the fore. It hasn\’t been found wanting. As you say, self moderation has definitely helped, and is something I fully agree with, where possible. Again, fair play to you and the guys for getting it right. I\’ve moderated for years on some of the busiest sites out there, and trust me when I say that it\’s a lot easier to get wrong than it is to get right. People who complain openly should remember that this soapbox on which they stand is based on volunteerism. If a photographer was to be engaged to shoot all the events that you cover, for example, you\’d want a mortgage to be paying them.

I\’d make one suggestion though, that I\’ve seen to work well on other blogs etc., and it may only take a couple of lines. A comments policy that can be linked to from the homepage, that errant users can be pointed at if there\’s a problem? Just an idea

1) From attending most of Youghal Town Council’s meetings over the past two years, I can testify without doubt that each and every councillor strongly supported the planning application by Galvin Developments, Killarney to develop the site in question. The vote to rezone the site for industrial use was unanimously carried. Youghal Town Council granted planning permission.

2) There were 39 submissions to the planning application. Youghal Chamber of Commerce remained neutral, deciding not to make a submission as it did not form a mandate from members.

3) It is quite correct that Dunne’s Stores were never more than an aspiration as anchor tenants. They had neither signed nor guaranteed anything. Galvin Developments, who own the site, merely indicated that they had strong hopes that Dunnes would come on board.

4) The objections to the proposal were built on reasonable argument and personal concern, which was to be expected. It has to be recognised that they were accepted by a national, objective agency. It is pointless –and undemocratic- to expect objectors not to act according within their own interests. Turkeys don’t cheer on Christmas.

5) Rejection of a planning permission is not necessarily a bad thing. In most instances it helps to ensure that more negative aspects of the proposal are eliminated. Galvin Developments are free to submit another proposal and have said that they are scrutinising the details of An Bord Pleanala’s decision with this in mind.

6) In fairness to Michael Farrell of the Rivergate Mall, he cannot be held accountable for the decline or forestalling of business in the town centre. The rent for the library, for example is €6 per sq foot. This compares with an average of €40 per sq ft for similarly located premises in Midleton and is also under 50% the average equivalent in Dungarvan. The Rivergate Mall is currently leased at full capacity, with approximately 30 staff employed. One tenant has re-located from another part of town avail of a cheaper rent.

7) In general, when times were good, most of the town’s business community invested in their premises to make them more attractive and profitable. Public houses and restaurants are the most obvious examples. This is not to say there aren’t some chancers and greed merchants involved but generally, when they had profit they attempted to improve from it.

All reasonable comments are valid –although that those are not anonymous are more readily afforded credibility – but falsehood is no substitute for fact. Negative observations on Youghal perform a service and should be welcomed if accurate. Inaccurate information does the town a disservice, hinders investment and risks causing further decline and missed opportunities from potential investors.

Finally, interesting as the debate has been, I have no wish to re-open or contribute to it any further than this. If anyone disagrees with all or any of the above sentiments, that’s fine and I’m not going to try to persuade anyone any further. Life is too short and the weather is too good at the moment…I will keep Youghalonline posted if I hear of any new developments on this item.

Whilst they are waiting for a final word we should be using this time to be concentrating on the rejuvination of a dying town. What ever the decision in the end it is going to take YEARS for it to be built and up and running.

Yes Midleton and Dungarvan have good models but that did not happen due to the new developments it was happening anyway, the town councils nurtured their new and existing traders as well as using the develop0ers for support by writing in terms and conditions to improve the town to balance the impact.

Lets kick off with 3 simple ideas:
1.Place a cash machine at the south end of town ie in the Rivergate Mall- this would encourage more cash flow to that end of town (eg. I myself would have found this very benificial when the market was up and running)
2. Give the new small traders a break- how about some incubator retail units with start up business rates etc. we have enough units available all along the street.
3. Place strict guidelines on the appearance of empty units at present they look a disgrace.

PS the current decision is right if only for the parking issue the creation of 100 jobs=100 staff parking spaces leaving just 150 spaces for the customers what were they thinking?

http://www.youghalonline.com/2008/03/26/cllr-murray-to-withdraw-co-council-reports-from-youghal-meetings/

http://www.youghalnews.ie/issues/march2008.pdf

As I said above, the culture of protectionism among the traders in this town has led to a situation where instead of lowering costs to increase footfall, same are being increased in a misguided attempt to increase return.

A folly if ever there was one. We can all name traders that have been forced out due to ridiculous rental demands. I personally can rattle off three, within yards of the Clock Gate, one of which vacated leaving no grocery shop proper within over a quarter of a mile of the town centre, and two of which relocated further North to the Millenium Park area.

My point about the Indian Point development stands. Had we gotten this eight or ten years ago, the town would be in a much better position than now, as would the developer and tenants thereof. Getting finance to pursue it now, as well as holding tough for a couple of years until things pick up, particularly in an environment of falling rents and revenue everywhere would not be an easy ask, even if the planning got a green light.

That said, the culture of blind objectionism (is that a word?) in Youghal is seedy, misguided, self serving, and plain wrong. I won’t argue with you there. It has us where we are, and we need to move on now from where we find ourselves.

At my count, there are twelve candidates for nine seats on YTC (open to correction on this). Leaving party affiliations aside, there are some good people there that will be back, and one or two that will make the cut, but that I will be sorry to see resuming their seats. It is up to those who do not show blind support for the commercial sector of this town, instead looking to approaches that benefit all the townspeople that should be supported.

It doesn’t all stop when all the ballots get counted and spiked, in fact that’s when it all begins. Use these people. Email them. Stop them on the street and let your feelings be known.

And Tom, your opinions are most erudite and welcome, no comparisons with broken records are warranted

Ryan, there is something inherently wrong with a town when its citizens are denied basic, affordable shopping and have to travel to other towns.

The shops on the main street are empty or overpriced for a reason. Its not recession, they’ve been empty or overpriced for over 10 years. We have to ask ourselves WHY? People are leaving town in droves every day to shop in Dungarvan, Midleton, Waterford and Cork. We have to ask ourselves WHY?

WHY is it cheaper to spend money on petrol or bus fares to go to other towns just to pick up a few essentials? WHO owns the properties on the main street and WHY are the rents so high? WHY are start up costs on the main street so prohibitive? WHY can people open and run successful businesses in Midleton and Dungarvan but not in Youghal? Why do people in Youghal have to pay for parking when its free in other towns?

So was it wrong to refuse it? If the start up costs were affordable for new businesses (which I suspect they would have been as nobody local would have owned the units), there was adequate parking and most importantly competition then yes it was wrong to refuse it.

I can’t stress this enough and I know I sound like a broken record but there is no competition in Youghal, it has been stifled by the objectors for decades leading to a lack of job creation and inflated prices.