THE plans for the future of our county town, as laid out on the Ennis 2040 website, are visually impressive. They paint a picture of an oasis of calm and a vibrant retail and commercial hub existing side-by-side, while the town centre will experience a population boom from those living in newly-built apartment spaces. It’s ambitious, but it is progressive and in parts, welcome.
Ennis is known for it’s narrow winding streets and many of these had become tired and broken. The current Public Realm works are addressing this, and from what is evident at present, will give the town a vital facelift. They haven’t, however, come without a huge price to businesses in the town, many of whom won’t exist when the works are finished.
And, while these will be completed in the short-term, it is the long-term vision that has been the source of heated debate over the past 18 months.
The vision being set out for Ennis 2040 is for a 10-minute town that will be a hive of activity. A town where you can park on the outskirts, make use of public transport into the centre of town and avail of the public amenities, shopping, commercial spaces and the general ambience of a modern urban centre. If we compare this to how we live today, there are very few similarities.
Picture a cold and windy Tuesday afternoon in February when an elderly couple want to visit the pharmacy to pick up their perscription. Are they going to enjoy the benefits of the 10-minute town or simply use a pharmacy where they can park outside?
Now, picture a Wednesday morning in March. The weather has started to pick up and a couple with three young children on a day off school chat about going in to town to grab some breakfast and browse the shops. Are they going to park on the outskirts of town to walk into the town centre? Not if it’s cold, or wet, or windy.
At present, they would also have to contend with the open drug dealing on our main streets which can be seen anytime from 7.30am to midnight.
There are many issues presently at play in our town, and though we remain proud of Ennis and look forward to the end of the Public Realm works, a lot of damage has already been done between Covid and those works.
Add to this, that any public benches, green areas or visually attractive amenities in Ireland tend to be populated by people using drugs and drinking, or those who are forced out of emergency or temporary accommodation during day time hours. The exception to this is on the few truly fine days we might get in the middle of summer when they are outnumbered by those looking for a place to enjoy their lunch or a cup of coffee outside.
From the outside, the plan by Ennis 2040 looks like one that might have some hope of success if we had a third level institution and some footfall during the day and some semblance of a social scene in the town.
At present, you can walk up and down the streets of Ennis during the day and apart from Thursday, Friday and Saturday, you would be hard pressed to say it is ‘busy’ with people. At night, it is really only Saturday that publicans and restaurant owners have any hope of drawing crowds.
As it stands, we are planning to build a large number of apartments in the town centre, but did we ask who would live in the town centre? The town centre is currently not an attractive or safe place late at night or even early in the morning. It lacks basic amenities such as convenience stores, and this will not miraculously change just because we build apartment blocks for people to move into town.
It may be a chicken and egg situation, but it really feels like the plan for Ennis 2040 is to build a town those involved would like to have without adding the caveat that this is not how we live now. Without a societal return to the 80s we won’t have the future footfall in our urban centres. We won’t have the traffic to pubs and clubs as the next generation of young adults continue to shake off the Irish stereotype.
The presence of a bigger presence of a third level institution would change this, but without it it seems like we are aiming for something that isn’t compatible.
The site at Our Lady’s Hospital on the Gort Road has long been mooted as a potential home for such a development and would bring a boom to the town. Without it, the future remains unclear with no sign of clarity in the near future.
A native of Ennis, Colin McGann has been editor of The Clare Champion since August 2020. Former editor of The Clare People, he is a journalism and communications graduate of Dublin Institute of Technology.