Says St. Aidan’s was first shopping centre

February 1983

A Wexford supermarket boss has described as ‘an insult’ an advertisement last week for the town’s ‘first shopping centre’.

Mr Des Pettitt claimed this week that St. Aidan’s Shopping Centre was not only the first centre in Wexford, but when built in the late 1960s, was also one of the very first anywhere in the country outside of Dublin.

He hit out strongly at last week’s front page advertisement in The People, which was described as ‘a preliminary announcement for Wexford’s first shopping centre at Ballynagee’.

The advert said work on the four-acre site near Pinewood on the Newline Road was about to commence, and enquiries were invited from traders who might be interested in purchasing a shop there.

But Mr Pettitt, whose company owns supermarkets at South Main Street in Wexford and at Enniscorthy and Gorey as well as at St. Aidan’s, says there is no way that the Ballynagee venture can be described as the town’s first shopping centre.

‘ To claim it is, is an insult and a slap in the face to men such as Albert Lennon, Ted Doyle and Jimmy Browne, who were go-ahead enough in 1969 to start St. Aidan’s,’ he said.

St. Aidan’s may not be a modern complex, he adds, but that is because it is nearly fifteen years old. Yet it was the first, and it has served people well in the intervening years.

There are also fears that Wexford may reach saturation point with shopping complexes, if another is built on the outskirts of the town. Another major outlet is opening soon on the quays and the supermarket trade is fearful that the demand may not be there for everyone.