FF want to see ‘Living Cities’ brought to the town centre

FIANNA Fail’s South Louth East Meath Comhairle Ceantair’s first meeting of 2018 took place last week and was well-attended by members from the region. Chairman Richard Cooney welcomed everyone back and said that it had been a good 2017 for the party locally with increased membership, which was helped by visits to Drogheda from party leader Micheal Martin and leading frontbench spokespersons.

A number of topics were up for discussion during the meeting, including the future development of Drogheda. PRO Anthony Moore said:

“Members locally are not happy with how Drogheda is developing. There are far too many blighted parts of the town centre where shops and even whole buildings are boarded up, which is contributing nothing to the local economy and driving shoppers away from the town.

‘Both government and the Council need to go back to square one, particularly in the new development plan, in order to make Drogheda a better place to set up business and to shop and have a good time.

‘We need to play to our strengths in Drogheda. We’ve a long history as an open, trading town, a rich culture and beautiful amenities such as the river Boyne, world heritage sites like Newgrange and sandy beaches within easy reach. With proper leadership we could leave cities like Kilkenny in the ha’penny place when it comes to making Drogheda a great place to live, work and play.’

He instanced policies which would make it easier to renovate buildings in the town centre, saying:- “I was at the Living Cities initiative organised by Mayor Pio Smith some months ago, and there were excellent contributions that night about how government can put in place incentives and tax reliefs to enable the wealth of town centre buildings to be preserved and used for families and businesses for future generations.

‘We spoke about this and agreed that we are going to keep this on our agenda and meet with our relevant frontbench TDs with a view to ensuring that policies like this make it into our party manifesto for the general election. Then with a Drogheda TD elected at the next general election for FF, we can turn the fortunes of our town around once and for all.”