Thurles, Co. Tipperary continue in a cycle of spending large amounts of funding on projects that tick lots of boxes, but ultimately the town fails to maintain what it has already got and fails to fix longstanding important issues.
After spending, in or around some €10 million Euro on updating half of Liberty Square, ask yourself are traffic conditions any better?
Motorists would confirm that conditions have become significantly much worse, with heavy goods vehicles (HGV’s) forced to traverse our medieval streets, with no progress being made with regards our long sought after “Thurles Ring Road”.
Ask yourself why have all the business premises either moved or closed within the Liberty Square area of Thurles, and where is the promised increase in ‘footfall’, same now reduced by 60%, according to the few angry, remaining business owners.
Officialdom appears to “fix what isn’t broken”; the latest being a €3.4 million car park revamp near ‘The Source’ building, same only revamped some 8 years ago.
Latter is just one example; as they simultaneously ignore what badly needs fixing, e.g. the river Suir in the centre of Thurles Town, same being just one example, which Thurles.Info has already highlighted, on numerous occasions, most recently on August 17th 2024 last, HERE.
But there are other amenities showing obvious decay, same directly highlighting officialdom’s utter neglect of town maintenance.
We have mentioned already the 8 year old re-vamped Town Park carpark, same now to be re-vamped, yet again, to become a Market area and Restaurant, as yet devoid of tenants, which will considerably reduce existing car parking spaces, while competing with existing local small businesses, same already struggling to operate just a few metres away in the Liberty Square town centre.
In recent weeks we have watched mature trees ripped out from this aforementioned Town Park carpark and re-sown close by, their bark extensively damaged by heavy machinery which was used to rip apart the tree heel mesh grills at their base. Two of these mature trees are unlikely to survive the coming winter.
New “Nature Signs” provided along the river walk, close to the junction of Emmet Street and Thomond Road, and only recently erected, have now been smashed by a very small group of “uncouth barbarians”, permitted to roam freely in the area.
Of course no local residents nearby heard anything, as a large rock was used to pound the thick Plexiglas Perspex acrylic sheet, protecting its contents from weathering.
No Closed-Circuit Television Installed!
Signs are positioned nearby threatening CCTV (Closed-Circuit Television) being in operation. Yet again, no CCTV has ever existed, covering this area, and proof of same is the amount of damage caused by the afore mentioned small number of “uncouth barbarians”, with no arrests ever being made.
The eight year old Skateboard Park remains closed presently for the second time in just two years, with no official reason given. Its various surfaces have been sprayed with unwanted graffiti. See the residents wall at the start of our video stating “Thurles Ciity Kiids Smoke Hash”, (See also hate slogans in a video link inviting “TD’s, Councillors & Officials Invited To Walk On Thurles River Walk”; Same Posted Here ).
The area in the park known as the “Fitness Zone”, again, has been totally neglected, with the individual sectioned area’s poles either pulled up or broken off. Same poles are now rotten, having been only preserved using one basic coat of fence preservative some 8 years ago, before being then left uncapped due to its semicircle (circular half arc) construction.
Video, shown above, is undeniable proof of this very small section of our town, now depicting that which normally indicates an inner-city slum.
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