Ms. Majella Hunt, Director of Services made a presentation to the Elected Members on the “Town Centre First Policy”, a Government Policy launched on 4^th February by Minister Heather Humphreys.

·         The policy aims to create town centres that function as viable, vibrant and attractive locations for people to live, work and visit, while also functioning at the service, social, cultural and recreational hub for the local community.

·         It builds on existing best practice in a co-ordinated way to gain maximum investment from our towns (generally with pop >400)

·         There is cross government priority with strong partnership with local government that is locally led with significant investment.

·         Policy is to avail of opportunities from climate change and adaptation; digital transformation and remote working; demographic change and housing choice; experience-led retail; regeneration of public spaces; realising cultural assets and empowered, inclusive and engaged communities.

·         The focus and process is a tailored approach as every town is unique – a bottom up, plan led, place based process underpinned by investment, structures and support.

·         The implementation structures include a national oversight and advisory group

and National TCF office. The Local Authority will employ a Town Regeneration Officer and the town teams will be part of the structures with A total of 33 identified actions will be assigned to the stakeholders.

·         The Plan for each town will follow a consistent methodology with future funding, inclusion of the economic and social dimension, underpinned by a heath check and align with the NPF and statutory spatial plans.

·         Building better data will be a keystone to the success of the projects with research, agreed measurement requirements and impact assessments undertaken.

·         A toolkit will be developed to support the implementation of th policy

·         The Town Regeneration Officer will have a key role in community engagement including with town teams and linking to the expertise of the Local Authority.

·         The town teams will be the local experts and will consist of diverse groups. Capacity building with training and mentoring will be facilitated

·         Phase 1 includes the allocation of €100,000 for a town in each county and Strokestown is the town assigned in county Roscommon. The outcomes of Phase 1 will inform future TCT plans.

·         Finally, in this year’s call for URDF/RRDF funding, the emphasis has changed

The Members welcomed this new initiative and the funding for Strokestown. The initial funding is to design the Plan for the town and local knowledge is so important for the success of the projects:

·         Welcome a dedicated Town Generation Officer.

·         All backlands need to be assessed first to develop possibilities to open up the spaces – both domestic and commercial premises

·         Availability of jobs in the area are crucial to bringing people to live in towns.

·         Footfall is decreasing in small towns due to changes in retail – need ways to open up these towns to make more attractive

·         Thanks for the work done on Roscommon Town Carpark recently

·         People are moving back from large urban centres to rural towns

·         Initiatives on dereliction  ...  view the full minutes text for item 27