How would you spend €100,000 to ‘enhance streetscapes and shopfronts’ of your town?

25 comments
  1. I always thought a small grant specifically for shop fronts and shop signs would really help small businesses and improve the look of so many areas. You could have a set of rules about styles to fit an area, as a condition to get the funding. Giant cheap and nasty signs with loud colours always bring down the look of a street.

  2. Pedestrianize the streets that the local shops are on,[ as it statistically increases economic productivity](https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2018/1/16/why-walkable-streets-are-more-economically-productive) and would pull many shops out of bankruptcy with the increased consumer traffic.

    Especially with so much WFH, there is pent-up demand for local amenities. Just because someone is at home doesn’t mean they wouldn’t want to buy a nice coffee or lunch once/twice a week. Going to the local spar with a dirty car park just doesn’t have the same allure.

  3. We actually benefited from a similar scheme – opening a new cafe in a village and they contributed to the paint, woodwork, signage and plants. Although we had to put some of our own money in so couldn’t get everything done, it definitely helped with hiring professionals as opposed to struggling to do it ourselves.

    Would love if they added rubbish bins in the village though.

  4. OP hung drawn and quartered in his local town for posting too many emojis would enhance the streetscape and shopfront in my opinion.

  5. You’ll not get much done for €100,000 in a single town.

    Maybe tidy up a few areas, paint a couple of vacant units, plant a few trees and put in a few benches.

  6. Seen this mentioned in a local paper with Moate being one of the towns earmarked for funding.

    I really can’t see how 100K would have any impact given how run down a lot of the buildings on Main St. are.

  7. I would give the money to the local FFG councilor who will use it to hire their own company who in turn will charge 100k to throw a lick of paint on the place.

  8. A competition!
    Make/keep your property pretty (painted/flowers etc) and the 50 best win €1,000.

    Then to get as many involved as possible, have a lottery with the rest, and 50 randoms that didn’t win get a grand or 100 people get €500.

    Obviously, you could play around with the figures but I think it could work.

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