It’s not okay anymore to accept high vacancy rates in Tipperary Town.
That’s according to councillor Annemarie Ryan following the publication of figures showing there are 84 vacant properties in the local town centre alone.
She says there needs to be more emphasis on bringing these buildings back into use both as homes and businesses and rejuvenating Tipp Town.
Councillor Ryan told Tipp Today that the issue can’t be ignored given the current housing crisis.
“We’ve become nearly acclimatised to it. You know the problem is we get used to empty buildings and we walk by them every day. And then we kind of go ‘isn’t that terrible’.
“But really I think the government now – filtering down to our local authority – need to put a much stronger emphasis on getting these buildings back into use. There’s a lot of emphasis on ‘Town Centre First’ renewal – but how do you do that unless you know how many buildings you actually have and then you have good schemes in place to actually bring these buildings back.”
