The Government’s overarching strategy for the renewal and regeneration of towns in Ireland - ‘Town Centre First – A Policy Approach for Irish Towns’ was formally launched in February 2022. The policy was a priority commitment of the ‘Programme for Government - Our Shared Future’ and was developed jointly by the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage (DHLGH) and Department of Rural and Community Development (DRCD). ‘Housing for All’ (HfA 2021) is the Government’s ten-year Housing Plan for Ireland comprising four pillars to deliver increased housing provision nationally. Pillar number 4 targets measures to increase the use of existing under-utilised building stock to create new homes. The pillar specifically references harnessing the ERDF to address clear problems of dereliction and vacancy in our towns and to provide measures to regenerate them into viable uses as part of the TCF policy (Objective 19.4 of HfA). The aesthetic decline of the towns in our region are a blight both visually and economically, preventing or limiting strategic measures in public investment aimed at the wider regeneration of the urban area or town involved. Several reports and souirces have highlighted the extent of the urban degeneration. For example, the GeoDirectory Residential and Commercial Buildings database captures vacancy rates for residential and commercial properties, along with a NACE classification of the economic use of commercial properties as well as information on derelict dwellings (updated quarterly). The latest GeoDirectory Commercial Property Report found an overall commercial vacancy rate of 13.6% in Q2 2021 and some 90,000 of the overall stock of just over 2 million homes to be vacant, and a further 22,000 properties are derelict. An integrated and strategic approach to the regeneration of towns in the programme area is required to address complex societal problems, taking into consideration a range of recommended initiatives to progress the achievement of national, regional and local objectives for urban regeneration and compact growth. This approach is in line with the New European Bauhaus initiative and offers the potential to realize beautiful, sustainable, and inclusive projects through the Programme. An allocation of just under 15% of total programme resources has been made to PO5 to reflect the scale of investment required to address the challenge of urban regeneration within towns in the programme area. ============== This is an ambitious Programme and will require significant capacity building to ensure strong governance and effective programme implementation. The MA has worked closely with our intermediate bodies, e.g., Enterprise Ireland, Science Foundation Ireland and the Higher Education Authority, in the design of the Programme and will continue to work with them in the design and implementation of effective and efficient Management and Control Systems. Technical Assistance will be used: (i) to support skills development for beneficiaries, intermediate bodies, partners and the MA; (ii) to procure external expertise when required; (iii) to develop the electronic data exchange and collection systems required under the CPR; and (iv) to retain additional staff to ensure that Managing Authorities have sufficient resources to manage the Regional Programmes, as recommended in CR2019.
14
Made with FlippingBook flipbook maker