The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Michelin closure impacting on town centre businesses OPINION
In the second of a three-part series, Michael Alexander visits the former Michelin site in Ballymena, Northern Ireland, and speaks to businesses about the impact the factory closure is having on the fortunes of their High Street and trade.
It seems you don’t have to go far in Ballymena to bump into someone with a Dundee connection – and Belfast-born retired charity worker Muriel Burnside, 68, proves that point.
The mother of five and grandmother of seven is spending her last day as a volunteer at Save The Children which closed at the end of last week due to a change in lease.
However, not only did her grown up son and daughter study nursing and English literature respectively at Dundee University, her daughter, who now teaches in Argentina, once took a summer job on the factory floor at Michelin in Dundee, while a friend of her son – who now lives in Dunfermline and is married to a Dundee girl – worked at Ballymena Michelin and turned down a move to work at the Dundee plant.
Muriel says that internet shopping is having an impact on Ballymena’s High Street like everywhere else.
However, she says the impact of Michelin and other well paid employers closing is also having a detrimental impact – and she fears the closure of Michelin could have a similar effect in Dundee.
“A lot of the shops here have closed in the High Street and it’s a direct consequence of the closure of JTI and Michelin within months of each other,” she said.
“A lot of the clothes shops have gone. Charity shops have been picking up some trade but even they are now struggling. A lot of people will buy Primark – not top of the range clothing.
“A lot of units are empty in the town centre. A lot of family-owned businesses have gone.
“We lost a big electrical store. “It’s just the way finance is going everywhere but people can’t afford to go out buying the way they did.
“It’s devastating in more ways than one – and won’t happen overnight.
“I really feel sorry for Dundee because like here it doesn’t have a lot of big employers.”
Eugene Diamond is no stranger to change – or the impact of wider events outwith his control.
As a young man he was made redundant from a clothes shop in the town – he can remember the names and faces of customers who were murdered during the Troubles – and in recent years he has successfully diversified his newsagents’ business to deal with a changing retail market.
But after 39 years of running his shop at the heart of the community, the 61-year-old can’t remember anything as impactful as the closure of Michelin this year combined with the closure of the JTI cigarette factory last year, plus the collapse of Patton builders and other cuts before that – a combined loss of almost 3,000 jobs in six years.
“My business is doing OK because I’ve diversified into sweets and other things,” he told The Courier.
“But my shop was the closest to Michelin if coming from Ballymena and heading out.
“We have now lost the passing trade of about 30 to 40 workers every day. I was on first name terms with all these guys and knew all about their families.
“I’m still friendly with folk but saying that, people don’t go out of their way to visit if they are not walking past any more.”
Eugene said when he heard the news about the planned Dundee closure, his thoughts immediately turned to those former Ballymena workers who had been persuaded to relocate.
Ballymena is a tight-knit community – a “good town” which had always been successful, he said.
But recent economic blows had been unprecedented.
In terms of the wider economic impact on Ballymena, he said other businesses like sandwich bars and fish and chip shops were also suffering.
Eugene agreed it might be a “couple of years down the road” before the full impact of Michelin was truly felt because people who got packages still had disposable income. New jobs might also be found.
However, the reality was, he said, that no jobs as well paid as those lost would likely return to Ballymena in such numbers. He also said a lot of contracted staff were ultimately “cannon fodder”.
He knew cleaners, for example, who got very little compensation when Michelin closed.
Having worked at local newspaper the Ballymena Guardian for 33 years, sports editor and deputy editor Shaun O’Neill, 57, is the publication’s longest serving employee.
Michelin’s closure was certainly a shock – despite previous warnings of its demise – and he said many town centre shops were missing spending from Michelin and JTI “big time”. However, other businesses are riding the storm, he said, and remain hopeful that a planned “jazzing up” of the town centre through a proposed investment will help.
Fellow journalist Claire Tennyson, 33, who has worked at the Ballymena Guardian for eight years, said Michelin brought people to work from all over Northern Ireland.
The biggest worry for her was workers with young families who might lose faith in the future.
Turning Point – a regional organisation based in Antrim and Ballymena which offers support, intervention and preventative awareness programmes around the issues of suicide, self-harm, addiction and mental health – said it had seen a rise in males dropping in for advice in Ballymena recently. However, staff said there was no evidence this was directly related to recent factory closures – although they continue to monitor the situation closely.
To let signs, vaping shops, charity shops and nail bar salons… in many ways Ballymena’s High Street looks little different to anywhere else these days as it struggles to compete against internet shopping, rising prices and out of town retail parks.
But ask locals whether the recent closure of big manufacturing employers like Michelin and JTI Gallaher is also having a direct impact on the fortunes of business, and just about everyone agrees that it is.
Redundancy payments are softening the blow in the short term as politicians work to attract new investment.
However, with anxiety about the future and less money in peoples’ pockets all round, businesses are inevitably suffering.
Ballymena is still a bustling place with The Braid museum and arts centre proving to be a popular draw while cosmetically at least, flower beds and colourful garden murals help brighten otherwise drab town centre walls.
But while cosmetics won’t replace secure well paid jobs, they do help lift the spirits as the town searches for what it hopes will be a bright new future, and hopefully a return to jangling town centre tills.