UNLEASHING WEXFORD’S POTENTIAL
IN PART ONE OF A TWO-PART SERIES, WEXFORD COUNTY COUNCIL CEO TOM ENRIGHT SETS OUT HIS €200M VISION FOR THE COUNTY, WITH AFFORDABLE HOUSING, JOBS AND FLAGSHIP PROJECTS IN GOREY AND WEXFORD IN THE PIPELINE. INTERVIEW BY DAVID LOOBY
WEXFORD COUNTY COUNCIL has never been more influential in driving the local economy and its CEO Tom Enright has been at the forefront of an ambitious programme of works, estimated to cost €200m over the coming decade.
Six years into his role, Mr Enright sees Co Wexford as being well placed to become a modern county, one which attracts international companies and one which can shake off its fourth most disadvantaged county in Ireland tag by creating a transformational, open, smart economy, attractive to investors.
With more than 20 ambitious projects planned for across the county, including Trinity Wharf – a €30m hotel, apartment, cultural centre complex in Wexford town – he is putting his money where his mouth is, and believes the county can only achieve its potential by investing in its future.
Working in partnership with private investors has been the key to the council’s approach.
‘We are one of the few local authorities that are doing that to the extent that we are. The Local Government Act was changed in 2014 to give us a statutory role in economic development. I was involved at the time in discussions at national level to push for that as I felt it was important that we were given a proper role in economic development so we weren’t just relying on others like the IDA and Enterprise Ireland to do that, and while we do get good support from both organisations it’s important of us to do things to so we are developing a new technology park in Enniscorthy. The first building will be under construction in the next few weeks and that building is already half committed to which is great to see.’
He said: ‘A lot of the projects are getting to the stage of construction as set out in the brochure we sent to every house and business in the country.’
Citing Min Ryan Park – which is opening in April in Clonard at a cost of €3m – as an example of a project that has taken years to deliver on, but will bring huge benefits to the town and its people, he said people can see things are happening.
The technology park is one of several initiatives which the council is aiming to partner with private investors in.
The shining success of this approach has been The Hatch Lab in Gorey.
‘We partnered with private sector developers to develop The Hatch Lab in Gorey. There are now 28 small companies in there and there is interest from a number of large companies going in there so we expect some news on that in the coming months.’
Trinity Wharf is the council’s flagship project, one which will be a game changer for Wexford town, he says, but there are also initiatives in New Ross, Gorey and Enniscorthy including an advance technology park, the regeneration of Templeshannon and the development of the Market House.
‘Trinity Wharf has large commercial office space in it which we also need and in New Ross where we will have an advance factory under construction this year. So we are putting investment behind these developments to create job opportunities in the country as we know from research that we have carried out that we have one of the highest unemployment rates in the country. We have a huge number of people commuting out of the county to work and we have a huge number of people who go away to college and (they) don’t have the opportunity to come back because the better quality jobs aren’t here.’
Mr Enright said the council has started to see some real results coming from their work. ‘Last year we had two large IDA announcements with Opus and Grandpad. You’d have to go back to 2008 when Coca Cola was announced for the previous announcement. So to get two announcements in one year was great. I am putting pressure on the IDA all of the time but we know from what’s in the pipeline there will be more IDA announcements this year.’
The role of the council has developed from providing housing and services to also creating a vibrant, attractive business environment, which has seen the local authority reach out to business owners, hoteliers, international companies and universities, with a view to forging business links and bringing investment and jobs into the county.
‘Local authorities traditionally have provided social housing and roads. What is new though is where local authorities get involved in commercial partnership arrangements. We have seen hundreds of new jobs being created last year and we know there are companies coming to set up here that haven’t been announced (yet) for all kinds of reasons, We want the right kind of skilled jobs where people are getting good incomes because where you get good quality jobs the knock on impact on the local authority is huge. So for every well paid job you get that can create another good job in the economy.’
This bottom up philosophy from bringing jobs, to stimulating spending, to providing affordable housing has one end game: keeping Wexford people in their home county and attracting people to live, work and visit here.
‘People moving here working with a new company, they are spending money. They are buying houses. The companies themselves will need supports with logistics. So every one of these good quality jobs creates a second job. We have a lot of lowly skilled jobs in the tourism and services industries and in agriculture and food, some of which do not have high wages rates so it’s important to get a mix of jobs.’
Borrowing over €100m to invest in the county’s four main towns, in particular, has been part of that.
‘We have increased Local Property Tax and commercial rates. The councillors who took those decisions to do so. Cumulatively it gives us an extra €2.3m a year which allows us to borrow €50m.
As we move forward with our commercial projects we will get income from these as well which we can put back into the pot. That €50m will bring in another €100m in private and some Government funding as well so we have to be the catalyst to set out what we need to do to set out our projects.’
He set up a special projects team headed by Eddie Taaffe.
‘We are doing a lot of work putting property solutions in place for companies because the private sector and the market is struggling to do that and it won’t do it for a while because lease rates are depressed and they are not attractive enough for investors to come in and develop office space and factories. It’s not just about that when you talk to companies about places to locate to if you don’t have the space you are going nowhere.’
Council staff have carried out research into the skill-sets of people commuting out of the county for prospective companies looking to set up in Ireland.
‘You have to show they can recruit the skilled staff they need here. We’ve a lot of research work done to show what the skills are of the people who are commuting out of Wexford every day so we can say there are 1,000 people here who are commuting out who have the skills and you won’t have any problem recruiting them and there is a similar company down the road with skilled staff.
It was carried out through the Census and through the research NUI Maynooth did for us. We hired Abodo, a company located in The Hatch Lab, who identified where these people were. We also put signs on the back of Wexford buses that go to Dublin asking them to register with a site so we got a good return from that.
‘It’s the property, it’s the skills and then it’s the quality of life. It includes housing, outdoor pursuits, you can’t sell Wexford as nice beaches and golf. Young people today want an experience. Millennials want an experience. They don’t want a retail experience all the time. They want to go out and do an outdoor pursuit. So if you
I AM PUTTING PRESSURE ON THE IDA ALL OF THE TIME BUT WE KNOW FROM WHAT’S IN THE PIPELINE THERE WILL BE MORE IDA ANNOUNCEMENTS THIS YEAR
have a company coming here recruiting people and those young people have greenways, skateboarding etc as their leisure activities or if there is a venue they can go to for bands, it’s putting that together where there is a package you can show there is a lot to do. It’s ticking those boxes.’
He said when he applied for the CEO role in Co Wexford almost six years he found a county facing a lot of challenges. ‘One of the first things I did (when I got the role) was get Maynooth to do an AIRO report to see what I needed to get sorted out. I had come from Limerick where I had developed an economic plan and I could see that starting to make progress and that has made a lot of progress since.
‘I could see that Wexford needed a similar plan to look at how we could step in and use our resources to help address some of those challenges in terms of jobs, the local economy, community infrastructure, amenities, facilities. A lot of locations will put their hand out to the Government and say we need millions for this and that and if it doesn’t come they don’t get done whereas my attitude is we do them anyway. We have to, we can’t just sit back and hope that we get funding.’
He said today the county is improving in line with the national economy.
‘When I came here we had a deficit built up whereas no we are working on a balanced budget.’
The council directly target companies through its own networks and in conjunction with Enterprise Ireland.
He said by next month plans for the Market House in Gorey should be finalised. ‘We are out to tender for the development of the Market House on Gorey’s main street. We have no decision made on it. We have had some interest expressed by different people of what they would like to do but we have no agreement in place. We have no contract in place contrary to what might have been said in the media recently. We are going through a process now inviting expressions of interests to people who want to partner with us for an investment there for positive use of a building that has lain largely derelict for quite a while.’
He said there is an exciting possibility of bringing an historic, cultural building back into use.
Mr Enright said the initial plans were to open the back of the building connect it out into Market Square and create walkway with a plaza, a cafe and an outdoor space for concerts, a food market particularly during the summer,
‘Other options are to use it to see if it could be developed into some sort of a large scale venue so there are different options which it can be used for.’
Over recent years the council has acquired gardens at the back because the Market House footprint is small.’
Adjoining lands to the rear which link it back to Market Square being bought through a Compulsory Purchase Order (CPO) process. ‘That gives us a larger site to try to attract in some larger investors. The properties didn’t cost much to purchase. We have gone through the CPO process except we haven’t agreed compensation yet. This is likely to go through an arbitration process. We have made offers to the landowners involved which we think are reasonable. These were just back gardens, they weren’t full properties we were buying so they were of limited value.’
District councillors will also have an input on any decision made.
The council recently acquired 75 acres of land from NAMA, namely St Walleran’s Estate in Hollyfort and are in the process of master-planning that site. ‘It’s a very large land holding in Gorey. It contains an old historic house which was burned down by fire. I think that will be a fantastic opportunity for a mixed development to include possibly one or two schools, with a public space, a park, recreation facilities and both social, affordable and private housing (numbering around 150) because it’s a large, large site so I think that’s going to be an exciting project for Gorey and it will help us, in particular, to address the affordable housing issue.
‘Many people in Gorey find it very hard to get on the housing ladder, particularly people on modest incomes. Gorey is probably the most expensive town in the county in which to buy a house and by us having this land holding we will be able to develop housing there that is affordable for people on lower wages so I think that.’
The council are going to do affordable housing projects in each of the four towns. ‘We will be developing that this year.’
Also addressing the housing crisis in a limited way is the council mortgage. ‘The Rebuilding Ireland Home Loan, we are one of the highest local authorities in the country in terms of giving approval out. That gives a low rate, fixed rate mortgage enabling people to buy a house over 20, 25 years. Because it’s fixed it doesn’t have to be stress tested. Where somebody has been refused by two or more financial institutions they can apply. I think that loan is great for people because in some cases people are paying more in rent than on a mortgage.’
The second strand of the council’s new housing policy is using land bank. This involves getting a grant to put all of the services required in and then bringing in a developer to meet the cost of all of the houses. ‘All of that is reduced off of the cost of the house that means the house can be available for somewhere between 20 and 50 per cent of the market value. These projects will be underway across the county this year. We have a lot of people in the county that are on lower paid jobs who are probably just that little too high for social housing, but that little bit too low to get a mortgage from a bank so affordable housing and house loans.’
He said Gorey is an example of a thriving town which was bypassed, adding that he is optimistic that the town will continue to grow, and that there is a bright future for New Ross and Enniscorthy post-bypass opening. ‘Gorey is a thriving town and it’s doing well but you can’t take that for granted and you always have to invest. We have appointed consultants to develop all of Esmonde Street to create that into more of a public realm space. That is going to cost around €2m. It will make the street much more pedestrian friendly as we will be making footpaths wider, and it easier for parking. We will also be putting a lot of services underground, tidying up that whole area and refreshing it.’
He said the plan is to get more employment into Gorey as many people are commuting from the north Wexford town to Dublin.’
As for the flagship Trinity Wharf project, Mr Enright said he is hopeful An Bord Pleanala will grant planning for it before the summer.
Estimated to cost between €25m and €30m, the first phase of works would see all of there services, including a railway crossing and a road access, completed. ‘We also have to reconstruct the quay wall around the whole site as it is quite low lying. We have to raise some of the land on it as well. That will be the first part. While that is going on we will be finalising arrangements for private investors to come in to build a hotel, build a cultural centre and an office building.’
A multi-storey car park for around 600 cars is also planned.
‘It will be three to four years before we have the building completed on site. The pace of the works are contingent on private investment. We believe there is private investment out there for a 140, 150 bedroom hotel. We have a number of people who are interested in that.’