Supermarket chain should ‘hang their head in shame’ over state of former Tipperary outlet
An Irish supermarket chain should “hang their head in shame” at the state they’ve let a building on a main street in one of Tipperary’s main towns fall into.
That’s according to Clonmel councillor Tom Acheson who hit out at the state of the old Dunnes Stores building on Clonmel’s O’Connell Street.
At the September meeting of the Clonmel Borough District, Cllr Acheson said that the state of the prominent town centre premises is taking away from the good work being done by the council’s derelict sites team across the town.
The Dunnes Stores outlet on O’Connell Street closed in 2017, but the chain has two other stores in the town, on Davis Road and in the Oakville Shopping Centre.
At this month’s meeting, Cllr Acheson said the work to tackle derelict and vacant buildings in the town is “very welcome”.
"We had a long chat with Shane Grogan, the town regeneration officer, and he discussed the work that they’re doing in relation to the derelict buildings, which is extremely welcome,” he said.
"Businesses come and go, people retire, people go out of business for various reasons, but there’s one premises that we all look at on the main street in our town, the Dunnes Stores premises.
"They have two very profitable stores in town, and I think they should hang their head in shame the way they’ve left that property for so long,” Cllr Acheson said.
Calling on the supermarket chain to engage with Tipperary County Council, the Fine Gael councillor said that the building needs to be brought back to life.
"I’m asking Dunnes Stores to engage with Shane Grogan and his team, he has a mechanism for sorting out whatever issues they have, and let’s see can we restore it,” he said.
"It’s one of the prime places in town, it’s not that they’ve retired from business, it’s not that they’ve gone out of business, and I think we as a council should ask them to engage with us because there are loads of possibilities for that store, and I don’t think it’s reasonable that a company like Dunnes Stores would walk away from a store and leave it as it is for so long”.
Mayor of Clonmel Cllr Pat English said he wholeheartedly agreed with Cllr Acheson, and said it was important to keep the pressure on the company.
"We raised this on numerous occasions, and we wrote to Dunnes as well on this, so we need to keep the pressure on because they’re just sitting on the premises,” Cllr English said.
Councillor Richie Molloy said that he also supported the call, and if companies like Dunnes can’t afford to do up a building, then how could anyone expect a smaller business to do so.
Fianna Fáil councillor Siobhán Ambrose said that she had been in contact with Dunnes, and they had committed to doing some works on the store.
Today's News in 90 Seconds - September 23rd
"I’ve been in contact with someone from Dunnes and they said they’d paint it, and it is available for rent, and if somebody wants to use it, it is available for rent,” Cllr Ambrose said.
The Clonmel Borough District’s administrator said that she would write to Dunnes again and see if they would do something with the property.
Dunnes Stores were contacted for comment but none had been received at the time of publication.