Choice of Supermarkets in Kilkenny

road_high

....is frankly rubbish for a place of 25,000 people.
2*Dunnes Stores (yawn)
Superquinn (my owm fav, but can be expensive)
Super Valu,Loughboy
Euro-spar
Lidl

And that is pretty much it as we stand. No Tesco. No Aldi (Co. Carlow gets it's fourth just over the border in B'Town). No M&S.

Pretty dismal choice it has to be said. Towns of 10,000 have a better choice

Captain Havoc

I've said it before and I'm not the only one, MacDonagh fücked up big time putting Dunnes in there. Yeah, no Aldi, you see Aldis in micro-villages FFS. I'd love M&S to come here but I don't we'll be seeing much change TBH, except for Aldi coming at some point.

road_high

New Ross has nearly as good a choice as KK;Has an Aldi and a Tesco. Which seems like a joke situation to me. I know Aldi have apllied for 2 stores in the city, Loughboy and Hebron road. The latter has recieved it's planning I think but nothing seems to have started. Pretty pathetic. Tullow has an Aldi and a Tesco as well. KK "city" has neither.

Captain Havoc

Kilkenny is the 13th largest town in Ireland and there are 100+ Tescos, I don't know exactly the costs here in Kilkenny but I do know the store I work in is rellocating to Carlow because it's getting better conditions. We're slowly pissing away a chance to be the premier shopping town in the south east, motorway not too far away in the future making Kilkenny very accessible. Kilkenny is a beautiful city but we could do with shoppers on the run up to Christmas and not just rely on pounds, dollars and cats in the summer.

road_high

I think it is down to the Councils and their ridiculous planning. Where as other towns accomodate the likes of ALDI etc ours goes out of their way to thwart them. Example being in 2003 when ALDI first wanted to come to a business park on the Dublin road was shot down beacuse it was not zoned specifically "retail".

road_high

Captain Havoc wrote: »

Kilkenny is the 13th largest town in Ireland and there are 100+ Tescos, I don't know exactly the costs here in Kilkenny but I do know the store I work in is rellocating to Carlow because it's getting better conditions. We're slowly pissing away a chance to be the premier shopping town in the south east.

May ask what kind of store that is? Who could blame them if it adds up.

Another thing in Carlow is the free parking at the Fairgreen, in the middle of the town. And 2 Aldis of course, something KK lacks.

Captain Havoc

mfitzy wrote: »

May ask what kind of store that is? Who could blame them if it adds up.

Another thing in Carlow is the free parking at the Fairgreen, in the middle of the town. And 2 Aldis of course, something KK lacks.

Furniture. It's something so petty, parking is never an arm and leg but it's something that people hate paying for. Am I right in saying only Dunnes give out free parking on €10+ of purchases in MacDonagh. If so, why doesn't MacDonagh order an amount of free parking tokens for every store to hand out with purchases of €10 or more. They do need to charge for parking because people would take the piss. Funny story, last time I was in Dunnes I had my bicycle helmet with me and the girl asked me if I had a car in car park? (This is not uncommon, many times the spar on Vicar St. has asked me if I had petrol, despite the fact I had a bicycle helmet on my head).

t63m

mfitzy wrote: »

I think it is down to the Councils and their ridiculous planning. Where as other towns accomodate the likes of ALDI etc ours goes out of their way to thwart them. Example being in 2003 when ALDI first wanted to come to a business park on the Dublin road was shot down beacuse it was not zoned specifically "retail".

The reality is 10 people own the bulk of Kilkenny -in that I mean there are ten main commercial and private property players in the city. These players have dictated the planning agenda in Kilkenny for years. Remember the original Dunnes efforts to get planning permission! Anything that threatens the comfy commercial retail and rent status quo will be shot down in flames. Its a sad indictment of our political and planning system that the people manning the guns are simply puppets for the gun owners. In fact very often the puppets are so far removed from the top of the food chain that they are completely unaware of the agenda