RTE1: Creedon's Cities - except Waterford!

7upfree

abouttobebanned wrote: »

So what are you going to do?

Right now I am going to get back to studying for my finals.

I am simply pointing out what our councils in the south east as a whole should be doing. As I am not a councilor there is not a lot I can do on that front but what I will keep doing as I always do is promote Waterford at every opportunity I get, and where the opportunity arises make recommendations to our councilors.

Small steps as simple as a free parking day in the city center can do a lot to bring shoppers to the City and I have noted other town centers do this in recent months and get a lot of publicity for it. I know its only something small and on a whole wont make an awful lot of difference but one thing it will do is get us publicity for the right reasons.

Another thing the City Council need to look at is rent and rates charged in the City. Lower rates and better rents would help with bringing business to our City. High rents and high rates is a major reason for a lot of business closing down.

I haven't thought it through in a lot of detail but once I have more time on my hand who knows what I might come up with.

I am far from Naive and know that a lot of the time politics get in the way especially now a days with the fragile economic state of our country, but that doesn't mean we should all simply sit back and say ah sure its the recession if everyone makes a small change all the small changes can lead to a big change.

abouttobebanned

7upfree wrote: »

Right now I am going to get back to studying for my finals.

I am simply pointing out what our councils in the south east as a whole should be doing. As I am not a councilor there is not a lot I can do on that front but what I will keep doing as I always do is promote Waterford at every opportunity I get, and where the opportunity arises make recommendations to our councilors.

Small steps as simple as a free parking day in the city center can do a lot to bring shoppers to the City and I have noted other town centers do this in recent months and get a lot of publicity for it. I know its only something small and on a whole wont make an awful lot of difference but one thing it will do is get us publicity for the right reasons.

Another thing the City Council need to look at is rent and rates charged in the City. Lower rates and better rents would help with bringing business to our City. High rents and high rates is a major reason for a lot of business closing down.

I haven't thought it through in a lot of detail but once I have more time on my hand who knows what I might come up with.

I am far from Naive and know that a lot of the time politics get in the way especially now a days with the fragile economic state of our country, but that doesn't mean we should all simply sit back and say ah sure its the recession if everyone makes a small change all the small changes can lead to a big change.

Well you can start small...a Facebook page for one. Every time there's an instance of Waterford being ignored in the Media you can post it up there. That way you have a public record of the "injustices".

7upfree

abouttobebanned wrote: »

Well you can start small...a Facebook page for one. Every time there's an instance of Waterford being ignored in the Media you can post it up there. That way you have a public record of the "injustices".

Your word in quotes there adequately demonstrates your attitude. On the one hand blowing about what you do; then castigating others for highlighting discrimination against our City. Well done. Not.

7upfree

S28382 wrote: »

Kilkenny people dont need to speak about it as they know they have the mentality and the talent to come back the next time and actually have another good pop at it.

Yeah, right......:D

7upfree

Sully wrote: »

UpTheDeise were probably the only people heavily campaigning for Waterford to be recognised on various sites etc. That's pretty much stopped now!

More's the pity really. People could take a lesson from them.

abouttobebanned

7upfree wrote: »

Your word in quotes there adequately demonstrates your attitude. On the one hand blowing about what you do; then castigating others for highlighting discrimination against our City. Well done. Not.

No, that word is in quotes because we haven't yet confirmed that there has actually been any injustices. Did you just learn the word castigate this week by the way?

7upfree

abouttobebanned wrote: »

No, that word is in quotes because we haven't yet confirmed that there has actually been any injustices. Did you just learn the word castigate this week by the way?

Same time as you did apparently. Are you really that closetted? Discrimination = injustices.

S28382

Ye guys seems to have a bit of dislike for each other........is there something going on between ye that we all dont know about?

Neeson

calvin_zola wrote: »

I have no doubt that if RTE where to have gone forward and added a 5th city to the agenda of this show they would have had Kilkenny or Sligo ahead of us.

Saying that we do get a bit of exposure on Nationwide still.

Well whatever about Kilkenny, I don't know where 'n the Jaysus you're getting Sligo out of. Unless Creedon started visiting towns as well! Since when did anything official say Sligo was a city?

Neeson

S28382 wrote: »

RTE forgot about ye too:D ah we didnt forget ye up there we were just comparing the whole crap of who is a city between Waterford/Galway/Kilkenny/Limerick/Cork/Dublin. I spent a week on Falls rd in Belfast and that was nearly as big as Kilkenny:p, its a nice place but yeah if we included the north in our city/town discussion then Belfast is a city.

Don't forget Newry and Lisburn too.

Neeson

comeraghs wrote: »

Living in Dublin, you'd be very surprised by the lack of knowledge that Waterford is Ireland's 5th largest urban area. Ask most people to name the 7 largest cities in the ROI, most will say
1 Dublin
2 Cork
3 Galway
4 Kilkenny
5 Limerick
6 Sligo & maybe then 7 Waterford.

I doubt people in Dublin think Kilkenny is larger than limerick. And where in the holy mother of god would they get Sligo out of? It's not even in the top 20 largest urban centres for jaysus sake. Throwing in places like that is pure nonsense. I'm not from Waterford either so I'm not being biased.

S28382

Neeson wrote: »

I doubt people in Dublin think Kilkenny is larger than limerick. And where in the holy mother of god would they get Sligo out of? It's not even in the top 20 largest urban centres for jaysus sake. Throwing in places like that is pure nonsense. I'm not from Waterford either so I'm not being biased.

I doubt the people of Dublin ever heard of Kilkenny :pac:

7upfree

Neeson wrote: »

Well whatever about Kilkenny, I don't know where 'n the Jaysus you're getting Sligo out of. Unless Creedon started visiting towns as well! Since when did anything official say Sligo was a city?

Have a peep at this:

http://www.sligotown.net/issligoatownoracity.shtml

Not official, but you can see where it's going.....

7upfree

Neeson wrote: »

Don't forget Newry and Lisburn too.

Outside the state.

Jason Todd

Lads, forget about where is a City and where is not. This thread is going OT again! The fact is there are only 5 cities recognised by law in the Republic of Ireland and on the RTE programme, Waterford was excluded.

Now we should asking what we can do to raise our national profile beyond bad news stories on the 6 o' clock news, and if indeed RTE have some sort of bias against us/ the South East and what can be done about that!

7upfree

Ray d'Arcy looked into this on fix it Friday and the response he got from RTE is that the RTE south office is making this production and have recently done 2 programmes based on Waterford and thought it would be unfair to the other cities to give Waterford too much exposure.

I have never heard such utter BS. They did the rescue 117 programme (they also did a rescue 115 based on the Shannon based search and rescue helicopter) about 18momths to two years ago and some nationwide programme about food in Waterford in the last year some time. I'm sure in the last two years they've done more than 2 programmes on some of the other cities.

Their response to the Ray D'Arcy show is different to that they have given to people on here who have complained which indicates they never even considered us.

We shouldn't be putting down our city and saying what does it really matter these are the things that matter because it's all little things like this added together that us going to ruin our wonderful city. We have already suffered significantly in recent years due to the lack of development in our city when times were good. All we can do now is make the most of what we have and promote the many fantastic things we do have.

We did wonderful last year for the tall ships, Spraoi is 20 years this year, the development of paranell street has really made a significant difference to that area of our city.

If the people of the city don't care about it how is anyone going to care about it. We need a bit of brainstorming I'm sure there's plenty of great people on here with great ideas to promote our wonderful city.

FishBowel

I think Waterford should 'exploit' this exclusion and try and be as different to the rest of Ireland as possible!

Professey Chin

FishBowel wrote: »

I think Waterford should 'exploit' this exclusion and try and be as different to the rest of Ireland as possible!

These differences intrigue me.....
State your case sir!

Trick of the Tail

Waterford is largely forgotten by the Dublin-based media, we all know that.

Aside from the exclusions from weather forecasts, TV programmes etc there is also a radio station - 4FM - which is licensed as 'multi-city' but is not available in one of Ireland's cities.

The reasons for this exclusion and ignorance, I think, is due to closed-minded thinking by the city's politicians over the decades. The City Council seems to be populated by civil servants who have there own parochial agendas, they are determined, it seems, to drive people out of the city centre - by making parking difficult and expensive, and by charging huge rates for city centre shops. And the elected politicians don't seem to have the guts to take on these lifers.

30 years ago there was no charge for parking in Waterford. The council ('Corporation' then) seemed to function ok at the time, even during the 80s recession.

Furthermore the city needs to me made more attractive to visitors. Right now, anyone approaching from Dublin first comes across signs of dereliction and neglect. From Cork all you see are car showrooms.

The City Council need to use the powers they have under the Derelict Buildings Act to pull down the Ard Ri, level and landscape the site.

(A recent visitor to Waterford said to me 'Ah, Waterford, yes that's the place with the hideous derelict hotel overlooking it).

They should use the same powers to demolish the eyesore that is the North Wharf.

They should use some of the money they're always spending on traffic 'control' measures and vanity arts projects to actually do something worthwhile for the future of Waterford.

First impressions count - and the first impression visitors get right now is of a city that doesn't care about itself.

If Waterford it seen to be picking itself up, starting to look good, that would be a good first step to making it a more attractive place to visit and live in.

After local pride would come national admiration.

A.

7upfree

alinton wrote: »

Waterford is largely forgotten by the Dublin-based media, we all know that.

Aside from the exclusions from weather forecasts, TV programmes etc there is also a radio station - 4FM - which is licensed as 'multi-city' but is not available in one of Ireland's cities.

The reasons for this exclusion and ignorance, I think, is due to closed-minded thinking by the city's politicians over the decades. The City Council seems to be populated by civil servants who have there own parochial agendas, they are determined, it seems, to drive people out of the city centre - by making parking difficult and expensive, and by charging huge rates for city centre shops. And the elected politicians don't seem to have the guts to take on these lifers.

30 years ago there was no charge for parking in Waterford. The council ('Corporation' then) seemed to function ok at the time, even during the 80s recession.

Furthermore the city needs to me made more attractive to visitors. Right now, anyone approaching from Dublin first comes across signs of dereliction and neglect. From Cork all you see are car showrooms.

The City Council need to use the powers they have under the Derelict Buildings Act to pull down the Ard Ri, level and landscape the site.

(A recent visitor to Waterford said to me 'Ah, Waterford, yes that's the place with the hideous derelict hotel overlooking it).

They should use the same powers to demolish the eyesore that is the North Wharf.

They should use some of the money they're always spending on traffic 'control' measures and vanity arts projects to actually do something worthwhile for the future of Waterford.

First impressions count - and the first impression visitors get right now is of a city that doesn't care about itself.

If Waterford it seen to be picking itself up, starting to look good, that would be a good first step to making it a more attractive place to visit and live in.

After local pride would come national admiration.

A.

Very well put A. I've always found it incredibly suss that a "national" radio licence can exclude an entire region. One wonders at the reasoning by the BAI behind this.

I know someone who was at a meeting for an hour in the Granville one night this week. The car park across the road was charging FIVE EURO to park there. AT NIGHT-TIME.

TheTurk1972

Being from Waterford. Grown up in Waterford and left Waterford - Its definitely not next nor near a city.

Neeson

Everyone is going on like the national broadcaster is only against Waterford. This is the town's forum, fair enough. However, plenty of other regions other than the south-east are often looked over. Parts of the west and the north-west for sure.

Roanmore

WLR I believe are the reason 4FM are not allowed broadcast in this region, they objected to it( think that's what was being said at the time).

FishBowel

Turn Waterford City into a Gaelic-speaking region. The Government won't ignore it then!

fricatus

FishBowel wrote: »

Turn Waterford City into a Gaelic-speaking region. The Government won't ignore it then!

Hehe, I'm likin' this guy/gal ^^

Speaking Irish has done Galway no harm after all - they have their own TV station FFS!

Something genuinely useful might tumble out of the FishBowel if we leave him/her at it for long enough!

jmcc

fricatus wrote: »

Hehe, I'm likin' this guy/gal ^^

Speaking Irish has done Galway no harm after all - they have their own TV station FFS!

Galway didn't get TG4 because of being any great cultural asset but rather simply by having their own "Minister for Galway" (Micheal D. Higgins) in power during the Rainbow Coalition of the 1990s. Great country huh?

Regards...jmcc

membersonly

I wouldn't really consider Waterford to be a city to be honest, I like to think of it as a small town and I like it that way.

Finnbar01

Neeson wrote: »

Everyone is going on like the national broadcaster is only against Waterford. This is the town's forum, fair enough. However, plenty of other regions other than the south-east are often looked over. Parts of the west and the north-west for sure.

What parts of the west are overlooked?

It is a myth that the west of Ireland is poor or deprived. The west of Ireland is very good at playing An Béal Bocht.

FishBowel

membersonly wrote: »

I wouldn't really consider Waterford to be a city to be honest, I like to think of it as a small town and I like it that way.

Waterford City is a large town with a village mentality.

jmcc

FishBowel wrote: »

Waterford City is a large town with a village mentality.

Not quite. It has a City mentality whereas some of the rest really have small town mentalities. Look at how Dublin breaks down as North Side and South Side and its various sections that were separate villages and towns a hundred years ago.

Galway's city status is the product of legislative creep as new villages/towns are added to the area to boost it politically. Waterford, like Dublin, being a real city has grown outwards. If Waterford applied the same legislative landgrab techniques as Galway applied, Tramore, Dunmore, some of Kilkenny and Tipperary would be part of Greater Waterford.

Regards...jmcc