What would YOU do to Greystones?

woodsy2

Hi Folks!

Just out of interest/fun, on the imaginary basis that this forum represented the town council, what would most people on here like to see changed, or created, in the town? What new shop, industry, facility, activity, community scheme or cosmetic works would you implement to better the place we call home? (maybe we'll forget about the harbour for this one, sure we have a whole thread on that already ).

sanbrafyffe

release more fish so we could fish its beach more:D:D:D:D:D:D:D

Mr.Crinklewood

Paint them a brighter colour.

Pablo Sanchez

Bring the Luas to the town and or increase the number of Dart's

MonkeyMe

Get the traffic out of the village and turn the main street into a pedestrian zone... and give the park a facelift, plant some trees, flowers, etc...

loobylou

Make the buses link with the DART, last night the 184 left the station at 19.24,
the 84X left at 19.26 and the DART arrives in at 19.27.
Edit, lost track of days, it was Wed rather than last night but happens most days anyway.

Charlie-Bravo

Have to agree with MonkeyMe about the park...it's a bit pathetic TBH...uneven surfaces, grass is always too long, footpaths are in sh**e, benches are well dated and need replacing...the only thing that looks good is the water feature and the seating which is actually beside the park!

It would be a fantastic space for families to hang around, play, have a picnic, etc...I reckon a Merrion Square-esque park would be great.

Now before all of that, the most basic thing they could do is bother to put a baby swing in the playground up at Charlesland Sports & Recreation Centre. That play ground is limited to over 3yr olds.:mad:

dudmis

I'd love to see a really good playground in Greystones aswell - one that caters for all ages and that could be a really nice rec area for families.I think its mad that kids have to queue up to use the swings etc in park by the park n ride.

Rasmus

Pimp the park, build a playground like the one in Cabinteely opposite shoreline, less boutiques, more independent food shops and specialty stores including a bigger bookshop and a toyshop, another secondary school, an adult education centre and learning centre for children - maybe in the form of a museum like a science centre. (This could go in the Woodlands building).
Potted Flowers all along the main street. Make the old post a tourist/community info centre.
Cheaper alternatives to theatre youth activities.
More darts, and they would have to match the bus schedule. An additional regular shuttle from Kilcoole to Bray. Failing that, a monorail from Charlesland to the park and ride.
Employ folks to clean all the dog poo from the beach, or impose wardens to fine people for letting their dogs do it. Benches and bins along the beach. Telescopes.
Nature trails around Burnaby woods/golf club area through to Charlesland.
There's more of course!

dr ro

Rasmus wrote: »

Pimp the park, build a playground like the one in Cabinteely opposite shoreline, less boutiques, more independent food shops and specialty stores including a bigger bookshop and a toyshop, another secondary school, an adult education centre and learning centre for children - maybe in the form of a museum like a science centre. (This could go in the Woodlands building).
Potted Flowers all along the main street. Make the old post a tourist/community info centre.
Cheaper alternatives to theatre youth activities.
More darts, and they would have to match the bus schedule. An additional regular shuttle from Kilcoole to Bray. Failing that, a monorail from Charlesland to the park and ride.
Employ folks to clean all the dog poo from the beach, or impose wardens to fine people for letting their dogs do it. Benches and bins along the beach. Telescopes.
Nature trails around Burnaby woods/golf club area through to Charlesland.
There's more of course!

more what? Taxes?

conlof

Rasmus wrote: »

Pimp the park, build a playground like the one in Cabinteely opposite shoreline, less boutiques, more independent food shops and specialty stores including a bigger bookshop and a toyshop, another secondary school, an adult education centre and learning centre for children - maybe in the form of a museum like a science centre. (This could go in the Woodlands building).
Potted Flowers all along the main street. Make the old post a tourist/community info centre.
Cheaper alternatives to theatre youth activities.
More darts, and they would have to match the bus schedule. An additional regular shuttle from Kilcoole to Bray. Failing that, a monorail from Charlesland to the park and ride.
Employ folks to clean all the dog poo from the beach, or impose wardens to fine people for letting their dogs do it. Benches and bins along the beach. Telescopes.
Nature trails around Burnaby woods/golf club area through to Charlesland.
There's more of course!

Great ideas

Rasmus

dr ro wrote: »

more what? Taxes?

Take a look at the first part of the OP's question.

Jammyc

With regard to the more darts suggestion, I dont think it's possible. It takes 10-12 minutes to get to Bray and then 10-12 back, so max is to have one every 25 minutes-ish because of the single line, which isnt a whole lot more than the every 30 minutes we see on weekdays.

Weekend dart times are pretty crap though, they could be improved.

Selandia

A properly run youth cafe, with coffee/juice bar, music, computers, meeting space, chill zone , etc - costs subsidised by public funding. Discreet supervision by adults but plenty of input by teenagers as to how it would be run!

Cheeky Chops

Dog poo .. pick it up people or do not have a dog!

Nice thread.

sagat2

First up bury the power lines in the middle of town, this happened in a lot of Irish towns during the boom years but Greystones still has cables everywhere.

Next fence in and landscape the park, like the peoples park in Dún Laoghaire, have it open and patrolled from Dawn to Dusk, I'd also build a band stand and name it Ronnie Drew park with ticketed live music events in the summer to raise cash for maintenance.

Now for a more ambitious plan: Bury the train tracks south of the station and down the South Beach and develop the seafront from the old garage south with a boardwalk and mixture of apartments, retail and dining opening up a secondary station down by where the river meets the sea as a major extension of the village. Obviously major coastal defences would need to be built to protect the new seafront.

Another improvement would be to level St. Davids and build an appropriate replacement with modern facilities and playing fields perhaps on the site across the Charlesland road from Shoreline, if not I'd build a small leafy college on that site maybe an art or foreign language school. If rebuilding on the Davids site ensure the design is in keeping with the aesthetics of the town.

Restore the LaTouche to it's former glory perhaps adapting it into a school, market or clinic, even apartments would be better than a vacant shell.

A larger police force patrolling the town and bouncing undesirables.

Make the main street a car free zone on weekends in Summer.

eigrod

sagat2 wrote: »

Restore the LaTouche to it's former glory perhaps adapting it into a school, market or clinic, even apartments would be better than a vacant shell.

It's ironic that hotels shot up all over the country during the boom, yet in our reasonably populated town, ours shut down and we are left with no hotel.

Also, would be nice if Church Road was properly re-surfaced (the botch job they did recently, particularly on the speed bumps between Fenton Fires and the Church was just ridiculous).

The Real B-man

More Pubs and a Decent Nightclub

Imhof Tank

Bring back the Summer Arts Festival

Huntthe

I think fixing the problem areas would be my priority. People have been looking at eyesores for so long they don't see them anymore.

The La Touche Hotel.
The Harbour.
The Garage opposite Bradys Hardware.
The Park
Dooleys Auctioneers in the Sports belt.
St Davids secondary School.

All eyesores.

Welsh Wizard

1. Sort the roads out...
The surface of the moon must be smoother than ours local roads.

2. Nice new hotel...
Not many many hotels in Greystones compared to Bray.

3. Sort out all the dog muckers...!
Fine them or shoot them with a ball of their own dogs mess.

4. Open the pub in Charlesland...
For the love of god, its been sitting there how many years...?

Is this too much to ask... I guess so...

Fiachra2

Huntthe wrote: »

I think fixing the problem areas would be my priority. People have been looking at eyesores for so long they don't see them anymore.

The La Touche Hotel.
The Harbour.
The Garage opposite Bradys Hardware.
The Park
Dooleys Auctioneers in the Sports belt.
St Davids secondary School.

All eyesores.

Good point.
The one thing the people of Greystones could do (and indeed the town council could do) is to make a plan of what they would like the town to look like. The plan would involve listing out the "things" we want to keep (eg La touch hotel, park, etc) and the areas of the town that give it its character and to agree that they must be protected. The plan would also identify the eyesores that need urgent attention. It would also identfy the areas that need enhancing as well as new features we would ideally like to add to the town. This would give a framework plan against which new developments of proposals could be assesed and give developers an idea of the kind of development that would be well received.
A number of years ago two of us who were then on the town council tried to prepare such a plan using public fora to formulate it. Believe it or not we met with vigourous opposition from the town council and Wicklow county Copuncillors who were unhappy with anything that interfered with the traditional developer-lead approach to town planning!

cavemeister

New roads, speed ramps that don't sink lower than the road and the big one..... sort out the sand on the beach.... I have seen grass growing on it. It needs to be combed by a tractor.

Alun

cavemeister wrote: »

... sort out the sand on the beach.... I have seen grass growing on it. It needs to be combed by a tractor.

If it's the area I'm thinking of, it's not normal grass like you have on your lawn, but a specific variety of sea grass called Marram Grass that naturally occurs in such situations and if given the right conditions is an aid to embryonic dune formation. It has special roots that grow underneath the sand and then pop up further on, binding the sand together.

So no, it doesn't need to be combed by anything, certainly not a tractor. It might even be protected, I don't know.

shaviebeby

Need activity centres for kids to play and participate in. Big sports dome-activity centre. Keep people active and not confined to their houses, especially in the winter months. Not many activities to do in winter once the evenings get shorter!!!

amy1plus2

Charlesland Pub - Please - Nuff said

Mullie

Build a walking & biking trail along the coast as a continuation to the cliff walk. We're sitting on a coastline with massive tourism potential and its only partially utilised.
Tourism Ireland are developing cycling trails at the moment and it seems like Greystones is perfect for this.
Something along these lines:
http://www.discoverireland.ie/Great-Western-Greenway.aspx

Blandpebbles

The following would be enacted -

1. Community

Make it mandatory for people who live in Greystones for more than a year to actually participate in the community.

Everyone would be required to do at least one week a quarter doing community work. Painting, building etc... The Mellon foundation builds houses in a week in South Africa and Greystones struggles to take hoardings down, seed some grass and put some benches up to complete the harbour.

Funding would be provided by a Greystones residence fee of 50 euro per person per household annually. 2006 Census says approx 15000 in Greystones = 750,000.

Payment of this fee would be waived for those who do more than one weekend a quarter of community work.

2. Law and Crime

The Greystones Gardai would be required to provide crime and resolution stats on a monthly basis with pay directly related to results.

We must have SLAs.

3. Governance

Councillors would not be paid for their roles but perform the role on a focussed 2-3 hours per week on a voluntary basis as they love the town so much and keep telling us.

4. The Town

Church Road to be pedestrianised from Fenton Fires to the Railway Station. Reducing traffic congestion and enable shops and cafes to expand outwards to include stalls and open air cafes on the throughfare.

The Meridian centre can be adapted as a cover market which can operatre throughout the year, with the square area being populated during summer months. Renamed to Greystones Town Square.

5. Schools

All schools to be run by community trusts and religious influence to be removed.

All students both primary and secondary to have attend community responsibility classes.

6. Blacklion Petrol Station to have a cap set on petrol prices that must match other stations.

Macy0161

Harbour and the La Touche are the obvious big ticket items.

Smaller ticket items - the bloody dog crap everywhere - the park, the beach, the walkway above the beach, beside the playground etc. So enforcement of that would be a big thing.

Annasopra

I know that I'm not actually responding with my own list but just had to respond

Blandpebbles wrote: »

The following would be enacted -

Everyone would be required to do at least one week a quarter doing community work. Painting, building etc... The Mellon foundation builds houses in a week in South Africa and Greystones struggles to take hoardings down, seed some grass and put some benches up to complete the harbour.

Sure; great idea but just not feasible - a lot of disabled people and older people would not be physically able to do this, other people just don't have time due to life commitments such as work, parenting etc etc

Blandpebbles wrote: »

We must have SLAs.

I don't know what SLA means - I would ban management gobbledegook phrases

Jammyc

Johnnymcg wrote: »

Sure; great idea but just not feasible - a lot of disabled people and older people would not be physically able to do this, other people just don't have time due to life commitments such as work, parenting etc etc

That and it sounds fairly communist.

woodsy2

A number of years ago two of us who were then on the town council tried to prepare such a plan using public fora to formulate it.

That would be really cool. I've wondered recently if it would ever be possible to run the town like most places are run in Switzerland, in the "canton" system, I think some areas of the Basque country do it aswell:

i.e. The town council = the populace of the town, with decisions being made at town hall-style meetings using a consensus process or double majority voting or something. Naturally we wouldnt be able to fit 15,000 people in a hall, so if a vote was taken per 100 people and a delegate would vote the way the majority of each 100 voted, then boom, 150 people in a hall.

Whether the decisions that would come out of this process would make any sense I haven't the foggiest

1. Community

Make it mandatory for people who live in Greystones for more than a year to actually participate in the community.

Everyone would be required to do at least one week a quarter doing community work. Painting, building etc... The Mellon foundation builds houses in a week in South Africa and Greystones struggles to take hoardings down, seed some grass and put some benches up to complete the harbour.

I'd be in favour of doing work in the community, although I think it should be strictly voluntary . Maybe some kind of incentive might work, like those who work don't have to pay that 50 quid

Huntthe

Blandpebbles wrote: »

The Greystones Gardai would be required to provide crime and resolution stats on a monthly basis with pay directly related to results.

We must have SLAs.

3. 5. Schools

All schools to be run by community trusts and religious influence to be removed.

The other stuff has merit but...

If the Gardai had Service levels to meet regarding crime resolution they would be most certainly met if their salary depended on it but a lot of innocent people would end up in Jail.

All Parents in theory have the right to determine how their children are educated but banning religious insruction from Schools is most definitely communist.

Blandpebbles

SLA = Service Level Agreements.

FYI Greystones voted in Stephen Donnelly a management goobledegook speaker so prepare for more of it.

Disabled people can be just as active as non disabled and indeed want to be treated the same. Point taken so amended to where physically able.

Not sure I get the connection between solving crime and imprisoning innocent people. It's not the 70s and we are not taking about the Birmingham Six.

Regards Schools. There is already a forum in place to review religious oversight and education in schools which aims to deliver finding next year. Greystones has protestant, catholic and educate together yet educate together suffers lack of funding while the others do not. Do parents have a choice? Yes but not a great one right now. FYI no agenda on my part here just I remember my friends being told to sit outside during RE as they were not catholic and therefore were lower than the cat. A debate for another thread perhaps.

50 Euro Community is waived if you do the more than ONE weekend of work

Communist? No it is not a socialist agenda it is a means to improve Greystones as a town and improve the well being of the people through community work while providing a financial foundation to do the work.

Great thread by the way.

Tiradon

I don't believe mandatory community service is feasible as some people genuinely would not have the time to do (as previously mentioned due to work/parental commitments) and they shouldn't be penalised financially for earning a living/looking after their children. I do, however, believe there should be some form of community service requirement for people on long-term unemployment benefit. Most areas would benefit hugely from this and it would save the councils etc money and resources.

Blandpebbles

Definitely the unemployed should be put to work, no work no benefits.

People working and looking after kids... really you never have any spare time? really?

So if there was a community drive to fix up the harbour you wouldnt make use of it? not once ever in the whole year?

Tiradon

I understand your point and yes, I definitely would be up for a community initiative to fix up the harbour. I wasn't suggesting that I wouldn't have the time, I most definitely would but I just feel that the implementation of "mandatory" community service would probably meet significant opposition from a lot of people, especially those with young families etc. Just an opinion. Anouther route would be maybe to assign some additional tax credits to those who volunteer for community service, thereby rewarding people who "choose" to do it.

Huntthe

Not sure I get the connection between solving crime and imprisoning innocent people. It's not the 70s and we are not taking about the Birmingham Six.

If Garda salary was directly related to solving crime it encourages getting prosecutions at all cost.

Regards Schools. There is already a forum in place to review religious oversight and education in schools which aims to deliver finding next year. Greystones has protestant, catholic and educate together yet educate together suffers lack of funding while the others do not. Do parents have a choice? Yes but not a great one right now. FYI no agenda on my part here just I remember my friends being told to sit outside during RE as they were not catholic and therefore were lower than the cat. A debate for another thread perhaps.

Communist? No it is not a socialist agenda it is a means to improve Greystones as a town and improve the well being of the people through community work while providing a financial foundation to do the work.

As previously stated parents should have the choice but the below does not provide choice for those who wish a religious element to their childs education.

All schools to be run by community trusts and religious influence to be removed.

Don't want to de rail so I'll leave it at that.

Blandpebbles

Tiradon wrote: »

I understand your point and yes, I definitely would be up for a community initiative to fix up the harbour. I wasn't suggesting that I wouldn't have the time, I most definitely would but I just feel that the implementation of "mandatory" community service would probably meet significant opposition from a lot of people, especially those with young families etc. Just an opinion. Anouther route would be maybe to assign some additional tax credits to those who volunteer for community service, thereby rewarding people who "choose" to do it.

Good points, I like the tax credits idea however as it would be community based it would hard to implement that in the tax system. However, the idea of having the 'community donation' of 50 euro was to fund work as well. Perhaps a non monetary reward could also be given for those who participate. A park bench or flowerbed named after them... a photo in the Bray People Some people are obssessed with that one for sure.

Macy0161

Blandpebbles wrote: »

Definitely the unemployed should be put to work, no work no benefits.

If there's work to be done, should there not be a "job" to do it? No more than the old CE schemes, this and other schemes would inevitably used to do jobs people should be actually employed to do. But that, and other posts, are way off topic (even off this forum).

Blandpebbles

If Garda salary was directly related to solving crime it encourages getting prosecutions at all cost.


Doesnt have to refer to prosecutions solely -

% of time calls responded to in 15 mins etc...

Anyway...

Rasmus

Removing, not 'banning' religious instruction from the national curriculum is in no way communist. A widespread ban in society would only constitute that.
In fact, the current model, if anything, imposes greater religious restrictions than any perceived communist ideal.

Honestly!

Have the hoarding taken down at the harbour, plant the open areas and have markets and festivals down there. NAMA own it so it's ours!

Encourage tourism. Bray cliff walk needs to be fixed up and would be a great attaraction if more walks are promoted and organised.

Annasopra

fiachra - do you think the town council can achieve much?

everyone else have you considered running in 2014?

Blandpebbles

I have considered running but a couple of things stop me so far -

1. Councillor work seems to be designed to be spread out over a number of days rather than focussed times which isn't compatible with my business.

2. I don't have the patience to put up with the current batch of tomfools in there and would surely go postal within days.

3. Looking at who was voted in at the Wicklow TD level the same tomfools will be around for a long time... so postal chances are very increased.

Fiachra2

Johnnymcg wrote: »

fiachra - do you think the town council can achieve much?

everyone else have you considered running in 2014?

Yes I think they can but not very many of the sugestions made above (many of which would require govenment intervention). The Town Council has no funds so it cannot achieve physical projects. What the Town council could do is plan the future of the town. It can decide what the town needs and what it doesnt need and ensure that Wicklow County Council complies with this. This has rarely happened in the past because of the people who were (and are) on the Town Council. I dont want to seem critical of them (well.. some of them!) but they simply lack(ed) vision. The focus has been on cutting hedges, filling in potholes, ,attending town twinning functions etc. There is no attempt to look at the big picture, at preserving the beauty of the town and enhacing it, an endeavour in which they could be much more successful than efforts such as the endless lobbying of the IDA to build an industrial estate which the IDA knows is impractical.
I have served on the council along with Evelyn Cawley and we achieved a fair bit and could have achieved a lot more except that we were outnumbered.

The next election will be a great time to change things. Many of the old guard are in their 60's and may well either not run or have an insufficent power base to ward of a strong challenge from newcomers.

So in answer to your question I think the council could achieve a lot.

In answer to Balndpebbles the work is as much or as little as you want. There is no necessary work and only one (night-time) meeting per month.

Blandpebbles

Thanks Fiachra for the clarification.

Dr. Blandpebbles is becoming more interested in this council election now.

Vote No.1 BP this voting day.... '... even a pebble can create a big splash!'

Inhousejoke

Off the top of my head a few things are needed/should be changed, such as;

1/ A permanant, stable, safe bridge between Burnaby Lawns and Charlesland.
2/ Finish/change use of the abondoned half-built council depot next to the tennis courts.
3/Not a single empty council house (there are at least ten I know of, with 400 people on the waiting list).
4/More bus shelters

These are more localised problems, and I've got a feeling this thread is intended for the bigger picture of town planning!

In that sense I would need to have more of a think on it, but I would say there is defintely room for development of some industrial jobs, as well as things like an allotment scheme, maybe something along the line of a Transition Town? And don't get me started on local democracy....:D

shaviebeby

maybe close off the main street on Sundays and have Sunday Markets up and down the street. Get a bit of atmosphere going in the town. Have activities for the kids to do and make it very social.....Why not??...Sunday is quiet anyway and the shops could do with the business!!

Fiachra2

I occasionally visit a small mining town cum ski resort in the Canadian Rockies. They have this year opened a small museum in the town located in a disused building and funded by voluntary donations. Its mostly old photographs and a few other bits and pieces but it gives a great sense of the history of the town. something like that would work well in Greystones. We are not short of empty buildings and if the Town Council invested the money that is spent on the annual festival of nonsense called the La touche Legacy weekend plus some of the town twinning money it might just get it off the ground.

Selandia

Fiachra2 wrote: »

I occasionally visit a small mining town cum ski resort in the Canadian Rockies. They have this year opened a small museum in the town located in a disused building and funded by voluntary donations. Its mostly old photographs and a few other bits and pieces but it gives a great sense of the history of the town. something like that would work well in Greystones. We are not short of empty buildings and if the Town Council invested the money that is spent on the annual festival of nonsense called the La touche Legacy weekend plus some of the town twinning money it might just get it off the ground.

Loads of great suggestions in this thread, some easily do-able, some more fanciful and unlikely - but Fiachra's one above strikes me as one that could get underway relatively easily. Agree with you about diverting council funds to a new project too....