PBP Waterford welcomes the investment announced to bring Waterford up to speed with other Cities receiving urban development grants. PBP does not claim any credit for getting funding that Waterford deserves, as one of the primary Cities with most potential for growth and development of its natural, built and heritage environs. Scrapping at Government level for a region’s fair share is a flawed system that has served Waterford and the South East badly to date, and left us behind the curve when it comes to getting our fair share.
PBP do claim that we were ahead of the curve on the type of development needed for the City when others were still “Championing” shopping centres and chiding us for pushing a Liveable Waterford for the people, way ahead of any Covid outbreak.
PBP Candidate Úna Dunphy said “This investment is great news, but is late in coming; Cork and Limerick are well out of the traps on this type of investment. We in PBP Waterford have been pushing for Linear Parks, Car reduction, Park and Ride, Repurposing of vacant builds and embracing our Heritage in any City development for many years, while the political establishment were still talking about unsustainable retail, and encouraging the disastrous doughnut model following developer-led plans rather than tried and tested urban successes of other Port cities of Europe and further afield. Urban centres need to be vibrant spaces for people to live, work and play. There are huge possibilities once this direction has been accepted as the way forward.”
PBP Waterford sees any development of the City needing to embrace our built heritage, colourful history and geographic location, in order to do it justice. The needs of the people must be put ahead of the drive for profit, in order to strike the needed balance and provide sustainable long term development. Affordable housing needs to be provided directly by the Council on any brownfield sites, and a full use of the built environment in inner city areas for accommodation should be rapidly turned around.
“We have had many buildings in the City centre” Úna continues “vacant for many years, which may now never return to their original purpose. We need to urgently refurbish these, to accommodate the Council’s swelling housing lists and get our City repopulated. Especially in the Cultural Quarter and the Viking Triangle, we should undertake an updated accurate inventory of vacancy rates in buildings, to ensure these areas not only function at street level but as lived-in communities, while keeping the City affordable for renters, and avoiding any derelict sites.”
We welcome the investment and look forward to any development that uses our City’s amazing history in a creative, sustainable way, putting its citizens’ interests and quality of life to the forefront.
