Tipperary Town has been selected to be part of new initiative tackling vacancy levels.
The Irish Architecture Foundation’s (IAF) Reimagine Hometown programme wants to see towns revitalised and has awarded the local project €10,000.
Michael Begley Tipperary Town Revitalisation Task Force Manager says they have already identified clusters of buildings that could be brought back to life and are starting the process to engage with owners.
Speaking to Tipp FM Michael said that this is very welcome as their previous work found the town has particularly high levels of vacancy.
“That programme mapped all of the vacancy in Tipperary Town and it found that we have 84 vacant buildings in the town centre and a retail vacancy rate of 31.2% which is very, very high. The normal rate would be somewhere up to 10% so we’ve a huge difficulty here with vacancy in Tipperary Town. Now there’s some great work happening – wonderful to see that the Irish House on Main Street has just been completed.”
Michael is hopeful this project will have a knock on impact on the rest of the town.
“In terms of addressing the issue of vacancy we are taking the approach of one building at a time. There are some very good supports now under the housing for all programme… there are instruments that are coming on stream that are helping to address this issue and we are just trying to offer solutions for owners. So, I think as time goes by and more of these buildings are refurbished an brought back to life you do build momentum.”
