Sligo business owner questions finding of commercial vacancy report claiming Sligo has the highest figure in the country

A SLIGO businessman has challenged the accuracy of the most recently issued GeoDirectory Commercial Buildings Report which reports that the commercial vacancy rate in Sligo increased to 20.5% in December 2023.

The report, prepared by EY, found that this was higher than the national average of 14.3%.

However, Finbarr Filan of Filan’s Centra in Castle Street doesn’t accept the report’s findings for Sligo.

He was reacting to the GeoDirectory Commercial Buildings Report Q4 2023 which stated that Sligo, at 20.5%, was the county with the highest commercial vacancy rate, followed by Galway (18.5%) and Donegal (18.2%).

The west of the country continued to record high commercial vacancy rates in Q4 2023, with the rate in Connacht reaching 18.3%, an increase of 0.7 ppts compared to the same period in 2022.

At a national level, the average commercial vacancy rate increased by 0.3 percentage points (ppt) to 14.3% in the year to Q4 2023.

This is the highest level of commercial vacancy recorded by GeoDirectory since it began tracking data in 2013.

In total, there were 30,046 empty commercial units across the country, with the commercial vacancy rate increasing in 20 out of 26 counties.

Explaining why he discounts what the report states, he said: “If a letter isn’t delivered to a building it is deemed vacant and that is not true.

There are a number of units in Castle Street where there is no post going to them, but they are occupied and are in use.

“It’s how our towns are, how they have changed. We have gone from having loads of small shops to larger, more centralised shops, that’s the way it is.

“I see this [report from GeoDirectory] as a red herring, just a quick headline and it moves away.”

Speaking to Ocean FM, Mr Filan said, “If you look at our core commercial streets, Castle Street, Grattan Street, O’Connell Street, Wine Street and Stephen Street, we have just completed a joint survey between Sligo BID and Sligo County Council in conjunction with the Town Centre Regeneration Officer in Sligo County Council where those streets came out with an occupancy rate of 92% which is very strong.

“One or two buildings' status can have a big impact on the numbers, causing a big swing, but it is good to have a little bit of vacancy in case you want to expand.

“Things change and our town develops. If you move to the more peripheral streets, John Street, High Street, Holborn Street which were once busy commercial streets but have now changed due to the change in retail and how people shop there are higher rates of vacancy there, but they are moving towards being more residential.

“A Council decision to put rates on vacant buildings is already incentivising building owners to move from commercial to residential,” he added.

He said there is now substantial investment being put into town centres and more peripheral streets in an effort to address the issue of non-core streets where buildings are no longer suitable for commercial purpose. These are being transformed into residential, he said.

He accepted there was an issue with the speed at which the grant process was moving but efforts were being made to speed up that process.